''Cole Swindell'' is the debut 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, ...

artist

Cole Swindell Colden Rainey Swindell (born June 30, 1983) is an American rock music singer and songwriter. He has written singles for Craig Campbell, Thomas Rhett, Scotty McCreery, and Luke Bryan, and has released four albums for Warner Bros. Records Nashvil ...

. It was released on February 18, 2014 via

Warner Bros. Records Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...

. The album includes the number one single "

Chillin' It "Chillin' It" is the debut single by American country music artist Cole Swindell. Swindell co-wrote the song with Shane Minor. Swindell released the song independently in March 2013 as a digital download. In July 2013, Swindell signed a record de ...

Background

Lead single "Chillin' It" was produced by Jody Stevens, who is the son of songwriter and producer Jeff Stevens, and formerly one-half of the duo

Fast Ryde Fast Ryde was an American country music duo composed of singer-songwriters James Harrison and Jody Stevens, both of whom sing and play guitar. The duo was signed to Republic Records Nashville and has released three singles: "That Thang", which ch ...

. Stevens also performed all instruments on that track.

Luke Bryan Thomas Luther "Luke" Bryan (born July 17, 1976) is an American country music, country singer, songwriter, and television personality. He began his music career writing songs for Travis Tritt and Billy Currington before signing with Capitol Reco ...

's guitarist Michael Carter produced the rest of the album.

Critical reception

The eponymously titled ''Cole Swindell'' album received generally positive reception 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 two-and-a-half stars out of four, saying that the album contains an "unhurried confidence."

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 stars out of five, writing that the release "goes down easy even if it sometimes seems like an overblown demo tape", which "winds up pleasant enough." At ''

Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...

'', Glenn Gamboa graded the album a B, stating that the album set him up for "country stardom." Matt Bjorke of Roughstock rated the album four out of five stars, saying that the release is "easily likeable" because he has an "easy-going charm" about himself. At Digital Journal, Markos Papadatos rated the album a perfect five stars, affirming that "The songs on here are polished and infectious." Kimberly Owens of Got Country Online rated the album a perfect five stars, stating that "Cole Swindell is pure talent, whether it be with his songwriting, or his vocals." In 2017, ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' contributor

Chuck Dauphin Charles Frederick Dauphin III (February 17, 1974 – September 18, 2019) was an American sports and country music journalist. He was a radio broadcaster for WDKN in Dickson, Tennessee Dickson is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Located in ...

placed four tracks from the album on his top 10 list of Swindell's best songs: "Ain't Worth the Whiskey" at number two, "Hope You Get Lonely Tonight" at number three, "Let Me See Ya Girl" at number five and "Chillin' It" at number six.

Commercial performance

''Cole Swindell'' debuted at number three on the US ''Billboard'' 200 chart with 63,000 copies sold in its first week. With 42,000 of its sales were digital downloads, putting it at number one in the Top Digital Albums chart. On March 13, 2016, the album was certified

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...

by the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

(RIAA) for combined sales and

album-equivalent unit The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, is a measurement unit in music industry to define the consumption of music that equals the purchase of one album copy. This consumption includes streaming and song downloads in addition to traditi ...

s of over a million units. As of November 2016, the album has sold 510,400 copies in the United States.

Track listing

Personnel

Pat Buchanan Patrick Joseph Buchanan (; born November 2, 1938) is an American paleoconservative political commentator, columnist, politician, and broadcaster. Buchanan was an assistant and special consultant to U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, an ...

–

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 ...

slide guitar Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos tha ...

*Michael Carter – electric guitar,

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 ...

, background vocals *Howard Duck –

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 ...

, piano,

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 ...

*Josh Matheny –

lap steel guitar The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals that is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap. Unlike the usual manner of playing a traditional ...

Shane Minor Shane Allen Minor (born May 3, 1968) is an American country music artist. Signed to Mercury Nashville Records in 1999, Minor released his self-titled album that year, and it produced three hit singles on the '' Billboard'' Hot Country Singles & ...

– background vocals *James Mitchell – electric guitar *

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 ...

–

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 ...

, loop programming *John Palmieri – background vocals *Billy Panda –

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, ...

*Jody Stevens –

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

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 ...

, acoustic guitar, electric guitar,

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 ...

, loop programming, drum programming, slide guitar, synthesizer *

– lead vocals *Russell Terrell – background vocals *Mike Wolofsky – bass guitar

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Singles

Certifications

References

{{Authority control 2014 debut albums Cole Swindell albums Warner Records albums