Latest Release
- MAR 28, 2025
- 1 Song
- Songs About Me · 2005
- The Definitive Greatest Hits: Til the Last Shot's Fired · 1996
- American Man: Greatest Hits, Vol. II · 2008
- Dangerous Man · 2006
- Proud to Be Here (Deluxe Edition) · 2011
- Reloaded: 20 #1 Hits · 2009
- Dreamin' Out Loud · 1996
- Fully Loaded: God's Country · 2019
- HIXTAPE: Vol. 1 · 2019
- American Man: Greatest Hits, Vol. II · 2003
Essential Albums
- Dangerous Man, is Trace Adkins’ most rock-influenced effort to date. “Dangerous Man” and “Swing” follow the blueprint of Adkins’ smash hit “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk”— wide and low, these songs have the punch of AC/DC and the kind of fat-bellied hooks that impel bars full of people to sing along at the top of their lungs. “Southern Hallelujah,” “Fightin’ Words” and “Ride” are even heavier, suggesting that Adkins probably spends more time listening to Nickelback than he does Nickel Creek. Even though he has upped the toughness in recent years, Adkins still has a way with a ballad, and he’s especially good when dealing with the two subjects that have been present in his work since the beginning: changing oneself for the sake of love (“I Wanna Feel Something,” “Words Get In the Way”) and untangling the complex nature of family roots (“I Came Here to Live,” “The Stubborn One”). Admittedly, Adkins has made some of the most memorable barroom anthems in recent memory, but don’t let his flashy hits obscure the quieter ones — those songs offer the singer’s truest stories.
- Trace Adkins’ seventh album is bookended by two big-banner country anthems, “Songs About Me” and “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.” These songs fit in easily alongside Toby Keith, whose mix of machismo, Southern rock grit, and a pinch of roadhouse vulgarity became one of country music’s most popular recipes in the mid-‘00s. While Adkins’ growl is well-suited to such material, Songs About Me is more complex than its hits might suggest. In just three verses, “Metropolis” sketches one man’s lifelong relationship to his run-down hometown; with a few carefully worded phrases, Adkins makes us understand exactly why the man left, and exactly why he returns. Mainstream producer Dan Huff oversaw “I Learned How To Love from You,” a sentimental string-laden ballad that is turned into a sincere expression of gratitude by Adkins’ undiluted singing style. Most moving of all is “Arlington,” a bluegrass-tinged wartime ballad in which the patriotism is not contrived, and instead grows out of its unique perspective — it’s told from the point of view of a deceased solider who has been laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
- Over the course of five albums, Trace Adkins explored his strengths as a singer and an interpreter of material, and though he delivered many gems, he finally found his true voice with Comin’ On Strong. The album showed a huge boost in the fullness and self-assurance of his singing and the production is sufficiently full-bodied and muscular. Adkins shows his love of Southern rock in “Hot Mama” and “Rough & Ready,” which echo Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Charlie Daniels Band. The remainder of the album is unfailing. Rather than switch between songs that lean either towards rock, pop, or country, Adkins manages to blend elements of all three in “Comin’ On Strong,” “Untamed,” and “I’d Sure Hate to Breakdown Here.” He's always been a compelling singer, but on “Then Came the Night” and “One Night Stand” Adkins shows he can match a match a good story to dramatic music. The latter song draws a wrenching portrait of a regretful man alone in a hotel room, estranged from his wife and kids. It took some time, but with his sixth album Adkins proved himself a triple threat: a great band leader, singer, and storyteller.
- In 1996, Trace Adkins had yet to develop the brash, throaty voice that would become a trademark later in his career, but his debut album contains its own sense of craftsmanship and understated charm. Dreamin’ Out Loud features several clever songs from a host of veteran Nashville songwriters, including Kent Robbins (“Every Light in the House”), Tim Nichols (“(This Ain’t) No Thinkin’ Thing”) and Craig Wiseman and Trey Bruce (“It Was You”). The straight-shooting, heartfelt appeal on “There’s a Girl in Texas” and “If I Fall (You’re Goin’ With Me)” suggests Adkins had a bright future in Nashville, but it is his good taste and sincerity that were valuable above all else. “634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)” is a cover of a Memphis soul anthem from the ‘60s, and proof that Nashville and R&B should cross paths more often. While the song shows Adkins has good taste in material, “Dreamin’ Out Loud” is its own kind of soul music, as Adkins shows it's possible to be strong and vulnerable in the same moment.
- 2013
Artist Playlists
- This gravel-toned hillbilly hitmaker is also a reality TV champion.
Compilations
Appears On
More To Hear
- 'Monarch' star and country legend Trace Adkins joins Ty.
About Trace Adkins
Hard-edged honky-tonker Trace Adkins built his career by sticking to his traditionalist guns. Born in the tiny town of Sarepta, Louisiana in 1962, Adkins has led a life tailor-made for a country star. After graduating high school, where he sang in a gospel group called the New Commitments, he headed to Louisiana Tech to play football. A knee injury cut short his time there, and Adkins dropped out and worked on an oil rig, where he accidentally cut off the tip of his left pinky finger—he had the docs reattach it at an angle so he could keep playing guitar. After cutting his teeth in bars around the South, Adkins made music his life with the 1996 debut, Dreamin’ Out Loud, which put three singles in the top three spots on the country chart. His small-town upbringing and working-class roots inform many of his tunes; he espouses the romantic advantages of a farmer’s tan on the 2006 chart-topper “Ladies Love Country Boys” and throws a hillbilly party on 2020’s rowdy “Just the Way We Do It.” While he can do vulnerability, too—2011’s “Just Fishin’” is a tearjerker of a daughter and daddy tune—a punchy, good-time blend of rock ‘n’ roll, blues, and twang is Adkins’ calling card. Runaway 2005 hit “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk”—an early harbinger of country’s embrace of hip-hop—is a stellar example, the perfect storm of party-starter riffs and cheeky humor.
- FROM
- Sarepta, LA, United States
- BORN
- January 13, 1962
- GENRE
- Country