Morgan Wallen is a country music singer and songwriter. His second album, Dangerous: The Double Album, became the only country album in the 64-year history of the Billboard 200 to spend its first seven weeks at #1. It spent a total of ten weeks at that spot, the first album to do so since Whitney Houston’s Whitney in 1987. The album included singles “More Than My Hometown”, “7 Summers”, and “Wasted on You”.
His third studio album, One Thing at a Time (2023), has topped the Billboard 200 for 12 concurrent weeks as of May 31, with all of its 36 tracks entering the Billboard Hot 100. This broke the record for most songs by an artist on the chart at one time. The single “Last Night” peaked atop the Hot 100 in 2023, becoming Wallen’s first single to do so. Morgan’s 12-week run has broken several records, including a 31-year one set by Billy Ray Cyrus.
Wallen was born to Tommy and Lesli Wallen on May 13, 1993 in Sneedville, Tennessee. As a child, Wallen took piano and violin lessons. He aspired to play baseball in college, but after injuring his elbow he chose to pursue music.
In 2014, Wallen competed on Season 6 of The Voice, initially as part of Usher’s team and later Adam Levine’s team. He was eliminated during the playoffs.
While in California to appear on The Voice, Wallen began working with Sergio Sanchez of Atom Smash. Sanchez introduced Wallen to Bill Ray and Paul Trust of Panacea Records. In 2015, Wallen signed to Panacea Records where he released an EP Stand Alone on August 24, 2015. “Spin You Around” was Wallen’s debut single under Panacea Records and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on April 21, 2021. In 2015, Wallen’s manager, Dirk Hemsath of Working Group Artist Management, sent a demo of Wallen to Big Loud Shirt’s Seth England, who had Wallen audition for his partners in Big Loud Records. They signed Wallen to the label and the publishing company.
In 2016, Wallen signed to Big Loud Records where he released his debut single “The Way I Talk”. He co-wrote the A Thousand Horses single “Preachin’ to the Choir”. In April 2017, Wallen released a music video for “The Way I Talk”. He joined Florida Georgia Line on their Dig Your Roots Tour. In 2017, Wallen co-wrote the Jason Aldean single “You Make It Easy” with Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard, Brian Kelley and Jordan Schmidt.
On April 27, 2018, Wallen released his debut album, If I Know Me. The second single from the album, “Up Down”, recorded with Florida Georgia Line, peaked at #16 on Billboard. On July 30, 2018, Wallen released the album’s third single, “Whiskey Glasses.” The song reached #1 on Country Airplay in June 2019 and was Billboard’s 2019 top Hot Country song and Top Country Airplay song. In 2019, Wallen joined Florida Georgia Line on their Can’t Say I Ain’t Country Tour. On December 3, 2018, Wallen appeared in an episode of WWE Raw. Wallen’s single “Chasin’ You” was released in July 2019 and peaked at #5 on the Billboard charts. Wallen was a co-writer on Dallas Smith’s song “The Fall”.
In August 2020, If I Know Me reached #1 on the Top Country Albums chart after a record-breaking 114 weeks.
On May 27, 2020, Wallen released “More Than My Hometown” to country radio as the lead single to his upcoming second studio album. On August 14, Wallen released the song “7 Summers” and it broke the record for the most first day streams for a country song on Apple Music. It earned him his first top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, debuting and peaking at #6. The song was also chosen by the Time as one of the best songs of 2020. On November 11, Wallen announced that his second album would be a double album titled Dangerous: The Double Album, set for release on January 8, 2021. Wallen announced the release date for the album as an Easter egg in the short film for “7 Summers”.
The Double Album debuted atop the US Billboard 200 and the Canadian Albums Chart. It would remain atop the Canadian chart for four consecutive weeks, and the US chart for six consecutive weeks, marking the first new album from a country artist to do that since Garth Brooks’ The Chase in 1992. Wallen graced the cover of Billboard, whose headline read: “Is Morgan Wallen Country’s Next Global Star?”. Wallen soon became the first artist to ever chart six songs within the top 10 of Hot Country Songs at the same time in the week after his album’s release, with “Wasted on You”, “More Than My Hometown”, “Somebody’s Problem”, “7 Summers”, “Sand in My Boots”, and “Warning”. Wallen also charted 23 tracks from the album on the Canadian Hot 100, and 19 tracks on the Hot 100 in the U.S., including “Cover Me Up” and “This Bar”. Despite his racial slur controversy in early February, Wallen remained wildly popular. In the week following the controversy, album sales of Dangerous: The Double Album surged. In some cases, the physical as well as digital album sales went up over 100% in the week following the controversy. During the week of February 13, 2021, Wallen remained atop the Billboard charts despite the controversy; Dangerous: The Double Album remained atop the Billboard 200 chart, and Wallen’s debut album If I Know Me entered the top 10 for the first time. In the following weeks, Dangerous: The Double Album remained #1 on the Billboard 200, and as a result, Wallen captured the most weeks atop the chart for a male artist since Drake’s Views in 2016. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
