The UK's biggest country and Americana albums of 2017

Yee-ha! Saddle up, pardners, the C2C Festival is riding on back into town. Yep, Country to Country 2018 is heading for the O2 in London this weekend (Fri 9–Sun 11 March) and likely to be one of the biggest ever. 🤠

Headliners Faith Hill & Tim McGraw, Kacey Musgraves, and Little Big Town are just the tip of the iceberg – or should that be tip of the cactus 🌵? – as the sixth C2C Festival is packed with performances from the world’s best country stars, along with emerging talent from Nashville, the UK and Europe. 

To get us in the mood, we counted down the top country and Americana albums of the last year, across physical sales, downloads and streams.

It's fitting the leader of the pack should be the legend Glen Campbell with swansong album Adiós. The star passed away in August 2017 at the age of 81, just two months after the release of Adiós, which climbed to Number 2 in the week of his death. It was his ninth Top 40 album in a chart history spanning over 37 years, with a tally of 116,000 across all formats. Look back at all Glen Campbell's UK hit singles and albums in his archive.

Next up, and repping Americana, Irish singer Imelda May, who scored a third Top 10 last May (funnily enough) with Life Love Flesh Blood, while UK country duo The Shires take third. In 2015, they were the first UK country band to score a Top 10 album on the Official Albums Chart with debut Brave (at 26 in this rundown). Their sophomore effort My Universe was the fastest-selling British country album at the time of release.

Some big names start to make an appearance as we move down the Top 10: John Denver's Ultimate Collection is at 4, while former Led Zeppelin star Robert Plant moseys in at 5 with Carry Fire, which claimed the award for bestselling UK Americana album at the 2018 Americana Music Honors & Awards.

War On Drugs scored their first UK Top 10 album with A Deeper Understanding, and finish just in front of legend Dolly Parton's Very Best of collection, which is still hugely popular despite being released back in 2007, and Alison Krauss's Windy City at 8.

Other highlights farther down the chart include appearances from other huge stars' career retrospectives, like Kenny Rogers (9), Shania Twain (12), Glen Campbell once again (16 and 32) and the legendary Johnny Cash (18, 34, 35).

Also making a showing in the Top 40 are releases from contemporary stars like Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty, and Lady Antebellum. Classic studio albums making a showing include Taylor Swift's Fearless (22), Shania's Come On Over (28), and Dolly Parton's 1975 release Dolly.

See the full Top 40 biggest country and Americana albums of the last year:

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