''10,000 Towns'' is the fourth studio album by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

group

Eli Young Band Eli Young Band is an American country music band composed of members who met while students at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas: Mike Eli (lead vocals, guitar), James Young (guitar), Jon Jones (bass guitar), and Chris Thompson (drum ...

. It was released on March 4, 2014 via

Republic Nashville BMLG Records, formerly Republic Nashville, is a record label established in 2009 by Republic Records in New York and Big Machine Records in Nashville. It is headquartered on Music Row and utilizes the combined resources of Big Machine Records and ...

. The band wrote over half the tracks and co-produced the album with

Frank Liddell Frank Liddell (born November 13, 1963) is an American record producer. A former artists and repertoire director at Decca Records, he founded Carnival Music in 1999. Liddell is also married to singer Lee Ann Womack, for whom he has produced. Oth ...

and Justin Niebank. It includes the number one single "

Drunk Last Night "Drunk Last Night" is a song recorded by American country music group the Eli Young Band. It was released on July 1, 2013, as the first single from their fifth studio album, ''10,000 Towns'', their second for Republic Nashville. The song was writt ...

." An exclusive version of the album with three bonus tracks is available at

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

Background

Lead singer Mike Eli said of the album: "To still be making music and going through the craziness of life together is something we'd only dreamed of when we met back in college. This album shows another chapter in our lives as a band, as husbands, as fathers and as individuals that we're really excited to share with our amazing fans."

Critical reception

''10,000 Towns'' has received positive reviews from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

. At ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

'',

Brian Mansfield Brian Mansfield (born September 24, 1963) is an American writer and journalist. Early life and education Mansfield grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated from David Lipscomb High School. In 1984, Mansfield received a bachelor's degre ...

rated the album three out of four stars, stating "That keeps their populist country and heartland rock from setting down roots, but lets these songs resonate everywhere."

Stephen Thomas Erlewine Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occ ...

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

rated the album three out of five stars, writing that "their strength lies in the sweeter stuff, how they can make crossover country-pop that seems amiable but never cloying." At ''

The Oakland Press ''The Oakland Press'' is a daily newspaper published in Oakland County, Michigan with headquarters in Troy. It is owned by 21st Century Media, with which its parent company merged in 2013 after filing for bankruptcy. The local historical society t ...

'',

Gary Graff Gary Graff (born 1960) is an American music journalist and author. Biography Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Graff attended Taylor Allderdice High School where he wrote for school newspaper ''The Taylor Allderdice Foreword''. He receiv ...

rated the album two-and-a-half stars out of four, saying that the release "touts the virtues of lowest-common-denominator country, filled with sweet melodies, rich vocal harmonies and a careful straddle of the twang/rock divide to maintain its crossover candidacy." Bob Paxman of ''

Country Weekly ''Nash Country Weekly'' was an American lifestyle weekly magazine about country artists and their music. It was in circulation between April 1994 and May 2016. The publisher, Cumulus Media, now maintains the site ''Nash Country Daily''. Overvie ...

'' graded the album a B, and said that the release is "decent but not quite up to the level of those two powerhouses." At Roughstock, Matt Bjorke rated the album four-and-a-half stars out of five, saying that the album "suggests that heEli Young Band has found the right formula for their sound."

Track listing

Personnel

Adapted from liner notes.

Eli Young Band

*Mike Eli- lead vocals *Jon Jones-

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

, background vocals *Chris Thompson-

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

*James Young-

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

, background vocals

Additional Musicians

Tom Bukovac Tom Bukovac is an American session musician and producer. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in nearby Willowick, Ohio. He has been a Nashville-based musician since 1992. He previously owned 2nd Gear, a used music consignment shop in Sou ...

- electric guitar *

J.T. Corenflos Jerry Troy "J. T." Corenflos (November 6, 1963 – October 24, 2020), was an American session musician and country guitarist, who played on an estimated 75 Number One hit records as well as hundreds of other recordings and hits. He received 14 ...

- electric guitar *

Eric Darken Eric A. Darken is an American percussionist, composer, and programmer. Biography Drawing inspiration from his grandfather, a band leader. Darken began playing drums at age 12, and played timpani and mallets in high school. Darken attended ...

- percussion *

Dan Dugmore Dan Dugmore is an American session musician known primarily for playing the pedal steel guitar Born in 1949, Dugmore was raised in Pasadena, California. Influenced by the Flying Burrito Brothers, he learned to play steel guitar after Flying B ...

steel guitar A steel guitar ( haw, kīkākila) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conve ...

Kenny Greenberg Kenneth S. "Kenny" Greenberg is an American guitarist, songwriter, producer, and session musician. He is known for bringing a rock-and-roll sensibility to Nashville recording sessions. Biography Greenberg was born in Cleveland, Ohio but attend ...

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

, electric guitar *Tony Harrell-

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

*Wes Hightower- background vocals * David Huff- programming *Charlie Judge-

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

Hammond B-3 organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

, keyboards,

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

, synthesizer strings,

Wurlitzer The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments ...

*Tony Lucido- bass guitar *Jerry McPherson- electric guitar *Heather Morgan- background vocals *

Greg Morrow Greg Morrow is an American drummer, percussionist, session musician, mixing engineer, and vocalist. Biography Morrow was born in Ripley, Tennessee and raised in Memphis. At age 11, Morrow and his band performed on a local TV show, and he par ...

- percussion *Justin Niebank- keyboards, programming *Russ Pahl- steel guitar *

Danny Rader Danny Rader (born November 1, 1981) is a musician from Panama City, Florida. Born into a musical family, he began to play drums at age 2 and branched out into bass, guitar and piano in his early teens. Later he incorporated bouzouki, mandolin, b ...

- accordion,

bouzouki The bouzouki (, also ; el, μπουζούκι ; alt. pl. ''bouzoukia'', from Greek ), also spelled buzuki or buzuci, is a musical instrument popular in Greece. It is a member of the long-necked lute family, with a round body with a flat top and ...

, acoustic guitar,

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

*Cale Richardson- acoustic guitar, Hammond B-3 organ, piano *

Adam Shoenfeld Adam Shoenfeld (born April 29, 1974) is a professional guitarist, songwriter and producer based in Nashville, TN. Primarily focused on modern country music, his guitar playing has been featured on over 200 albums, and is closely associated with Bi ...

- electric guitar *

Ilya Toshinsky Bering Strait was a Russian country music band, whose style was sometimes called "redgrass". In 2003, the band was nominated for a Grammy Award and appeared on the TV show ''60 Minutes''. The group disbanded in 2006. The lineup on their first alb ...

- acoustic guitar

Chart performance

''10,000 Towns'' debuted at No. 5 on the ''Billboard'' 200 and No. 1 on the

Top Country Albums Top Country Albums is a chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine in the United States. The 50-position chart lists the most popular country music albums in the country, calculated weekly by Broadcast Data Systems based on physical sales a ...

chart with first week sales of 36,000 copies. The album has sold 95,000 copies in the U.S. as of January 2015.

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Singles

References

{{Authority control 2014 albums Eli Young Band albums Republic Records albums Albums produced by Frank Liddell