Top Ten Country Music Artists for the Decade 2000 to 2010

The Top Ten Country Music Artists for the Decade 2000 to 2010 is a perpetual Who's Who of the most popular music in American history and is diversified by many different styles. These ratings are based on such things as total number of albums sold, largest money making tours, and awards won.

10. Tricia Yearwood's strong, confident music is full of vulnerability in young women from a female's point of view, and she is perhaps best known for her song She's In Love With The Boy. Awards won include Top New Female Vocalist, Top Female Vocalist, Album of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, Favorite New Country Music Artist, Best Female Country Vocal Performance, and Best Country Collaberation With Vocals.

Tricia Yearwood's discography includes Tricia Yearwood, Hearts In Armor, The Song Remembers When, The Sweetest Gift, Thinking About You, Everybody Knows, Home For The Holidays, Where Your Road Leads, Real Live Woman, Inside Out, Jasper County, Heaven, Heartaches, and the Power Of Love, and (Songbook) A Collection Of Hits.

9. Shania Twain is the only female Musician to have three albums certified Diamond. Her Come On Over album is the best selling album of all time by a female performer, as well as the best selling album in the history of Country music. Shania Twain sold more than 65 million albums and is the tenth best selling Artist of all time with approximately 33,591,000 units sold. Awards won include five Grammy Awards and 27 BMI Songwriter Awards.

Major hit songs like You're Still The One, Don't Be Stupid, Honey I'm Home, That Don't Impress Me Much, and From This Moment On kept her Come On Over album on the charts for two years and helped it to sell more than 34 million copies.

Shania Twain's discography includes Up!, Come On Over, The Woman In Me, Shania Twain, The Complete Limelight Sessions, and Greatest Hits.

8. Best known for inspirational-style ballads about women and children, her big-voice, soprano range, and crossover sound, Martina McBride has had five Number One Singles, sold more than fifteen million albums, and won awards for Music Video of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, Female Video of the Year, Top Female Vocalist, and Favorite Female Country Artist.

Some of Martina McBride's top songs include A Broken Wing, Wrong Again, Whatever You Say, Concrete Angel, When God-Fearing Women Get The Blues, Where Would You Be, and the Classic athem Independence Day.

Martina McBride's discography includes Shine, Waking Up Laughing, Timeless, Martina, Greatest Hits, Emotion, White Christmas, Evolution, Wild Angels, The Way That I Am, and The Time Has Come.

7. With shows heavy on special effects, pyrotechniques, and laser lights Rascall Flatts was the top selling Artist of 2006. Other awards the Band won during the 2000s include Top New Vocal Duo or Group, the Horizon Award, Top Vocal Group, the Flameworthy Video Music Award, AMA Favorite Country Band, the People's Choice Award For Favorite Song From A Movie, Favorite Country Song, Group Video of the Year, the Humanitarian Award, and Song of the Year.

Rascal Flatts Number One Country Singles include These Days, Mayberry, Bless The Broken Road, Fast Cars and Freedom, What Hurts The Most, My Wish, Stand, I'm Moving On, Take Me There, Here, and Here Comes Goodbye.

6. Tim McGraw has sold more than 40 million units and has had eleven consecutive albums debut at Number One on the Billboard Album charts, 21 Number One songs, and three Country Songs of the Year. His Soul2Soul II Tour is the highest grossing tour in Country Music history and one of the Top Five among all musical genres. Awards won include Vocal Collaberation, Male Vocalist, Male Artist of the Year, Favorite Male Country Artist, Best Country Album, Single of the Year, Most Inspiring Video, Best Male Country Vocal Performance, Album of the Year, and three Grammy Awards.

Trademark Hit Songs for Tim McGraw include Don't Take The Girl, Indian Outlaw, Something Like That, It's Your Love, I Like It I Love It, and Live Like You Were Dying.

Tim McGraw's discography includes Greatest Hits, Set This Circus Down, Tim McGraw and The Dancehall Doctors, Let It Go, Southern Voice, Live Like You Were Dying, and more.

5. Alan Jackson combines honkey-tonk and mainstream Country music into his popular repretoire and wrtes many of his own songs. More than fifty of his Singles have reached Top 30 or better on the charts, and he has been inducted into the Georgia Hall of Fame. Awards won include Top Male Vocalist, Single of the Year, Song of the Year, Album of the Year, Vocal Event of the Year, Entertainer of the Year, Best Country Song, and being the second most highly nominated Artist for Country Music Association awards.

Alan Jackson's discography includes Here In The Real World, Don't Rock The Jukebox, A Lot About Livin' Who I Am, High Mileage, Under The Influence, When Somebody Loves You, Drive, What I Do, Precious Memories, Like Red On A Rose, Good Times, The Greatest Hits Collection, Super Hits, Greatest Hits Volumn II...And Some Other Stuff, Greatest Hits Volumn III, Live At Texas Stadium, 16 Biggest Hits, Songs Of Love And Heartaches, Honkey Tonk Christmas, and Let It Be Christmas.

At the 2002 CMAs Alan Jackson set a record for the most nominations in a single year, ten, many of which were associated with what he is perhaps best known for, his poignant, self-penned, Classic, Single and Song of the Year Winning, Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning) lament about the 9-11-2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

4. One of the most popular Touring Acts in Country Music, with Tour names like No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems, Margaritas And Senoritas, Somewhere In The Sun, Flip-Flop Summer, Sun City Carnival, and Poets And Pirates, Kenny Chesney won the Billboard Touring Award for Top Package Tour, and was named the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year, from 2005 to 2008. Kenny Chesney also won awards for Male Video of the Year, Single Record of the Year, Top Male Vocalist of the Year, Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, the ACM Triple Crown, Best Male Country Artist, Favorite Male Singer, Musical Event of the Year, Hottest Video of the Year, and FACM Best Duo of the Year.

Kenny Chesney's discography includes When The Sun Goes Down, My Wildest Dreams, All I Need To Know, Me and You, I Will Stand, Everywhere We Go, Be As You Are, The Road and the Radio, Lucky Old Sun, Just Who I Am: Poets and Pirates, All I Want For Christmas Is A Real Good Tan, Greatest Hits, Live: Live Those Songs Again, Super Hits, and Greatest Hits II. Some of his major hits include The Good Stuff, That's Why I'm Here, How Forever Feels, Young, A Lot Of Things Different, There Goes My Life, Big Star, and more.

3. The most successful Duo from all musical genres, Brooks and Dunn won the Country Music Association's Vocal Duo of the Year Award, which affectionately came to be known by their fans as the Brooks and Dunn Award, every year between 2000, (actually beginning in 1992), and 2006, except for 2000. Lifetime Achievement Award Winners wellknown for their high energy stage shows, and for covering the full range of Country music with their ballads, up-tempos, and Gospel-influenced songs, Brooks and Dunn won awards for Vocal Event of the Year, Song of the Year, Entertainer of the Year, Single Record of the Year, and Top New Vocal Duo or Group of the Year from the Academy of Country Music. The Country Music Association awarded them for Single of the Year, Vocal Duo of the Year, and Entertainer of the Year. The American Music Awards presented Brooks and Dunn the Favorite Country Band, Duo, or Group Award. Billboard Magazine, and the People's Choice Awards, named them Favorite Country Group, and the CMT Flameworthy Video Music Awards named them Group or Duo Video of the Year.

Brooks and Dunn's discography includes Brand New Man, Hard Working Man, Waitin' On Sundown, Borderline, If You See Her, Tightrope, Steers and Stripes, Red Dirt Road, Hillbilly Deluxe, Cowboy Town, It Won't Be Christmas Without You, The Greatest Hits Collection, Super Hits, The Greatest Hits Collection II, Playlist: The Very Best Of Brooks and Dunn, and #1s...And Then Some.

2. Toby Keith's numerous awards include being listed as Number Three on Billboard's Top 200 Artists of the Decade, being named the Nashville Songwriters Association International Songwriter/Artist of the Decade, Billboard's Number One Artist of the Decade, and Billboard's Number One Country Songwriter of the Decade. Add induction into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, twice being the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year, a three time BMI Country Artist/Songwriter of the Year, having more than 65 million performances of his music played, throw in sixteen Number One Singles recorded during the decade, nine years of million tickets sold for tours, and being a dedicated supporter of American troops, along with multiple other awards, and Toby Keith lands as the Number Two Country Music Artist of the Decade.

Toby Keith's Number One Singles list includes Should Have Been A Cowboy, Who's That Man, Me Too, How Do You Like Me Now, My List, Who's Your Daddy, Courtesy Of The Red, White, And Blue, Beer For My Horses, American Soldier, American Ride, As Good As I Once Was, A Little Too Late, and more.

1. Pure Country is the only way to describe Country Music's Artist of the Decade for 2000 to 2010. The Grammy Award Winning recognized "King of Country Music" is wellknown for his own unique style of Western Swing, honkey-tonk, and Traditional Country music, and has recorded 57 Number One songs, 13 multi-platinum, 32 platinum, and 35 gold albums that constantly keep him on top of the charts, and he is the highest nominated Country Artist in history.

George Strait's Discography includes Twang, Troubador, It Just Comes Naturally, Somewhere Down In Texas, Honkeytonkville, The Road LessTravelled, George Strait, Always Never The Same, One Step At A Time, Carrying Your Love With Me, Blue Clear Sky, Lead On, Easy Come Easy Go, Holding My Own, Chill Of An Early Fall, Livin' It Up, Beyond The Blue Neon, If You Aint Lovin' You Aint Livin', Ocean Front Property, #7, Something Special, Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind, Right Or Wrong, Strait From The Heart, Strait Country, and many more.

Much more information on these very popular, and top Country Artists of the Decade 2000 to 2010, can be found on websites such as georgestrait.com, tobykeith.com, alanjackson.com, triciayearwood.com, and kennychesney.com.