Written by Bailey Ridenour
If you know me then you know that March 3 was a highly anticipated day. Singer Morgan Wallen released his newest album titled “One Thing At A Time,” which is 36 songs long. When Wallen announced his album on Jan. 30, talk about the length of the album began to spread. It seemed the consensus was that 36 songs were too many. Personally, I was excited to have so much new music.
Wallen started teasing the album before he even announced it by releasing three tracks, “One Thing At A Time,” “Days That End In Why” and “Tennessee Fan,” on Dec. 2, 2022. Then, after his announcement, he released three more: “Last Night,” “Everything I Love” and “I Wrote The Book.” In total that is six songs that were released before the album that fans had not heard before. To my surprise, when the album dropped on March 3, Wallen had included three more already released songs from April and May of 2022: “You Proof,” “Thought You Should Know” and “Don’t Think Jesus” were all included in this album.
I was slightly disappointed to hear that nine out of the 36 songs were some I had already known, but 27 completely unheard songs were still exciting. In addition, artists HARDY, ERNEST and Eric Church were all featured on songs in the album. The album contains a good mixture of songs that range in speed but also in emotion. Between its diversity of songs and artists, I think “One Thing At A Time” is a huge contender for top country album of 2023.
During the first week of the album’s release, it moved 501,000 equivalent album units which is the biggest single week number for any album since November 2022 and the biggest for any country album since November 2021 (billboard.com “Morgan Wallen’s ‘One Thing at a Time’ Has Fifth-Biggest Streaming Week Ever for an Album” March 9). According to the same source, Wallen’s album also received the most streams ever for a country album in a single week, at 498.29 million on-demand official streams. He is also the first artist of any genre to get over 30 Hot 100 hits in the same week. So it’s safe to say that even if “One Thing At A Time” doesn’t make the top country album of 2023, Wallen is setting high standards for the country genre to beat this year.
