Just because an artist has a hit on the radio doesn’t necessarily mean that they will continue to have success. We found three country music artists who once had big singles that charted well, and are due for a comeback today.
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Brett Eldredge
Brett Eldredge released his freshman Bring You Back record in 2013. The album includes “Don’t Ya”, which became the first of several No. 1 singles for Eldredge. Other notable hits for Eldredge include “Beat Of The Music”, “Mean To Me”, “Lose My Mind”, “Wanna Be That Song”, and many others.
In 2022, Eldredge released Songs About You, his last record on Warner Nashville, where he had been for his entire career. A fan of the holidays, in 2024, Eldredge released Merry Christmas (Welcome To The Family) on his own. His last Top 10 single is “Under The Mistletoe”, which he sings with Kelly Clarkson. Hopefully, he is working on new music for the near future.
Matt Stell
Matt Stell almost became a doctor. Stell excelled in college and was accepted into Harvard as a pre-med, but ultimately changed course to pursue a country music career instead.
In 2019, Stell had a hit single with “Prayed For You“. Written by Stell, Allison Veltz, and Ash Bowers, the song was on his freshman Everywhere But On record. The song began with an idea Veltz had, which Stell quickly latched on to.
“She had met what turned out to be her husband maybe a week before, so she was riding pretty high from that,” he tells The Boot. “So that was our point of departure, and then Ash and I tried to inject our own experiences into the song. We came out with a guy that’s a lot like me, who’s way luckier than he deserves in most aspects of his life.”
Stell followed that with “Everywhere But On”, which also became a No. 1 hit for him. Stell’s last hit single is “Breakin’ In Boots”, a song that hit the Top 25 in 2023.
Lindsay Ell
Lindsay Ell is not only a talented singer-songwriter but a phenomenal guitar player as well. Already well known in her native Canada, in 2017, Ell released The Project on Stoney Creek Records in the United States. She followed that with two more albums, The Continuum Project in 2018, followed by Heart Theory in 2020.
On her own, Ell had one Top 20 single, with “Criminal”, out in 2017. She did have a No. 1 hit in 2019, with Brantley Gilbert, on their “What Happens In A Small Town” duet. In 2024, Ell released Love Myself on Universal Music Canada. She also toured with Shania Twain’s Queen of Me Tour, as well as performed in Las Vegas as part of Twain’s residency. But Ell is definitely worthy of more country music success in the United States
Photo by Jason Davis/Getty Images
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