''Starting Over'' is the fourth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by American musician

Chris Stapleton Christopher Alvin Stapleton (born April 15, 1978) is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and grew up in Staffordsville, Kentucky. In 2001, Stapleton moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to ...

. The album was released on November 13, 2020, by

Mercury Nashville Universal Music Group Nashville is Universal Music Group's country music subsidiary. Some of the labels in this group include MCA Nashville Records, Mercury Nashville Records, Lost Highway Records, Capitol Records Nashville and EMI Records N ...

. At the

64th Grammy Awards The 64th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on April 3, 2022. It recognized the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility year, running from September 1, 2020, to September 30, ...

it won the award for

Best Country Album The Grammy Award for Best Country Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality albums in the country music genre. Honors in ...

Composition

The singer-songwriter's fourth recording project consists of fourteen tracks produced with

Dave Cobb Dave Cobb (born July 9, 1974) is an American record producer based in Nashville, Tennessee, best known for producing the work of Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, John Prine, Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell, The Highwomen and Rival Sons . Cobb i ...

, and features writing by

John Fogerty John Cameron Fogerty (born May 28, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. Together with Doug Clifford, Stu Cook, and his brother Tom Fogerty Thomas Richard Fogerty (November 9, 1941 – September 6, 1990) was an American mu ...

Mike Henderson Mike Henderson (born in Independence, Missouri) is an American singer-songwriter. Career Early career Henderson was an original member of blues group the Bel Airs when they formed in Missouri in 1981. They released an album, ''Need Me a Car'' ...

, Mike Campbell,

Susanna Clarke Susanna Mary Clarke (born 1 November 1959) is an English author known for her debut novel ''Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell'' (2004), a Hugo Award-winning alternative history. Clarke began ''Jonathan Strange'' in 1993 and worked on it during her ...

and

Guy Clark Guy Charles Clark (November 6, 1941 – May 17, 2016) was an American folk and country singer-songwriter and luthier. He released more than 20 albums, and his songs have been recorded by other artists, including Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffet ...

. Interviewed by ''

Vulture Magazine ''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker'', ...

'', Stapleton said: "There’s a lot on this record that I’m finding out, as I’m starting to talk about it a bit, was very reactionary and in the moment. On previous records, there was songwriting that probably took place in a working songwriter vacuum, that sat around for a number of years and found a purpose when it was time to make a record. ..This project is much more about my current day-to-day life."

Critical reception

''Starting Over'' received generally positive reviews from critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 81, which indicates "universal acclaim", based on 10 reviews. Jonathan Bernstein of ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' reports that "''Starting Over'' feels comfortable experimenting with whatever its author throws at it" as Stapleton "digs deep into familiar territory, spinning a fiery tale of liberation", finding it a "sincere tale". Chris Willman of ''Variety'' finds that "''Starting Over'' is not intended to live up to its title; if anyone is so solid in his musical convictions that he could never try to reinvent himself, it's Stapleton. But it would be hard to consider an album that contains not just one but two

covers that pay homage to one of Stapleton's songwriting heroes as banal". Jeremy Winograd of ''

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York ...

'' finds the arrangements of the songs "sparse and uncluttered" leaving the singer-songwriter's voice "raw". Although he finds the vocal presence of his wife Morgane a testament to the songs' authenticity, he writes that "predictably, it only shifts his focus from love and tenderness to mild hedonism" finding them "largely limited".

Awards

Commercial performance

''Starting Over'' debuted at number three on the US ''Billboard'' 200 selling 103,000 units in its first week.

Track listing

All tracks are produced by

and Chris Stapleton.

Personnel

Adapted from liner notes. *

− lead vocals (all tracks), background vocals (tracks 5, 7, 10), acoustic guitar (tracks 1–3, 6–8, 10, 11, 14), electric guitar (tracks 2–7, 9–13),

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 ...

(track 2), octophone (track 7), string arrangements (track 3) *

− acoustic guitar (all tracks except 10 and 14),

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 ...

(track 5), string arrangements (track 3) *J.T. Cure − bass guitar (all tracks except 14),

upright bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

(track 14) *Derek Mixon − drums (all tracks), percussion (track 5), tambourine (track 3) *

Morgane Stapleton Morgane Stapleton (née Hayes), is an American singer-songwriter and the wife of Chris Stapleton. She performs background, harmony and duet vocals in her husband's band and was instrumental in the creation of his debut album '' Traveller''. A so ...

− background vocals (tracks 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14), tambourine (tracks 2, 5, 10, 13) Additional Personnel *

Benmont Tench Benjamin Montmorency "Benmont" Tench III (born September 7, 1953) is an American musician and singer, and a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Early years Tench was born in Gainesville, Florida, the second child of Benjamin ...

−

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 ...

(tracks 1, 3, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14), piano (tracks 3, 8, 11),

upright 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 ...

(track 5),

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 ...

(tracks 1, 8) * Mike Campbell − electric guitar (tracks 5, 12) * Paul Franklin −

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...

(tracks 10, 14) *Stephen Lamb −

copyist A copyist is a person that makes duplications of the same thing. The term is sometimes used for artists who make copies of other artists' paintings. However, the modern use of the term is almost entirely confined to music copyists, who are emplo ...

(track 3) * String section (track 3) ** David Angell − violin ** Jenny Bifano − violin ** David Davidson − violin ** Conni Ellisor − violin ** Alicia Engstrom − violin ** Mary Kathryn Vanosdale − violin ** Karyn Winkleman − violin ** Kevin Bates −

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

** Austin Hoke − cello ** Carole Rabinowitz − cello ** Sari Reist − cello ** Kris Wilkinson −

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

, string arrangements * Choir (track 12) ** Traneshia Chiles ** Tamika Harris ** Jordan Holland ** Lauren McClinton ** Marqo Patton ** Lenesha Randolph ** Shannon Sanders ** Melody Sheppard

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{Authority control 2020 albums Albums produced by Chris Stapleton Albums produced by Dave Cobb Chris Stapleton albums Grammy Award for Best Country Album Mercury Nashville albums