Best Sturgill Simpson Albums – Ranked

Sound & Fury

Simpson’s fourth studio album, Sound & Fury, likely came as a surprise to many when it arrived in 2019. The record marked a departure from anything he had previously released, the 10-track collection a dizzying apocalyptic fever dream of synth-riddled, psychedelic-dipped boogie rock.

It was a daring move for an artist who had solidified – for better or worse – a reputation as country music’s messiah, but Simpson made it anyway, upturning his own sound and shattering our assumptions.

What resulted was an exciting mix of hearty blues and delirious rock flush with futuristic flourishes. Sound & Fury gave us unforgettable moments like the industrial epic ‘Sing Along’, the spacey serenade ‘Make Art Not Friends’ and the strutting opus ‘Mercury in Retrograde’.

While it’s ranked last, Sound & Fury was far from a flop. In fact, it harbors some pretty enduring numbers among Simpson’s repertoire. It’s just a vastly different record, making it a difficult album to place.

Cuttin’ Grass Vol. 2

With his dual-volume collection, Cuttin’ Grass, Simpson again altered our perceptions of his sound as he turned up the twang on his steadfast country style and gave dozens of his hits a bluegrass-bent.

The 2020 project’s second volume features a mix of re-recorded tracks mainly from A Sailor's Guide to Earth and High Top Mountain, as well as a couple of unreleased additions, giving fans even more striking renditions of favorites like ‘Oh Sarah’ and ‘You Can Have the Crown’. It may be an abbreviated offering – harboring a mere 12 tracks to the former’s walloping 20 – but it is a potent one all the same.

While far from groundbreaking, the entire Cuttin’ Grass collection is another impressive display of Simpson’s fluidity and intuition as a musician.

Cuttin’ Grass Vol. 1

Again pulling mostly from A Sailor's Guide to Earth, High Top Mountain and Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, Simpson repurposed his repertoire, turning it on its head for Cuttin’ Grass Vol. 1.

He made foot-tappers out of thoughtful ballads like ‘All Around You’ and steadfast country epics like ‘Long White Line’. With the 2020 series, he continued to push the boundaries of his own sound, testing the limits, trying new things and giving already well-loved tunes even more reasons to adore them.

Though, again, Cuttin’ Grass Vol. 1 isn’t the most innovative, it was refreshing and proved further just how unpinnable the artist is.

The Ballad of Dood and Juanita

The Ballad of Dood and Juanita is a gunslinging concept album – equal parts smoldering bluegrass, muscular country and fiery gospel – about a man, his one true love, Juanita, and a quest for revenge, or perhaps something sweeter: salvation.

When Simpson released it in 2021, it was a bewitching record, cinematic even, as the titular Dood embarked on an edge-of-your-seat journey from song to song. But the album has also held up today, gifting fans more than just the beloved canine soliloquy, ‘Sam’, but also could-be standalone tunes like the sorrowful ‘Played Out’ and the Willie Nelson-assisted ‘Juanita’.

Upon its release, The Ballad of Dood and Juanita was an endeavor far removed from anything the artist had previously unveiled. In the end, though, it is an epic collection, proving Simpson’s songtelling prowess cannot be confined to a mere three-minute-or-so expanse.

A Sailor's Guide to Earth

To some Simpson fans, it may have seemed like his 2014 masterpiece, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, would have been impossible to follow. However, he did it, releasing his third studio album, A Sailor's Guide to Earth, in 2016.

Metamodern set a precedent for listeners, preparing them to expect the unexpected, and the dreamy soul-infused alt-country collection delivered just that. A Sailor’s Guide to Earth was another sidestep in his sound and style—still pensive and poetic, but this time piano-fueled and horn-flecked.

A Sailor’s Guide to Earth bares some of the artist’s most enduring songs, like ‘Brace for Impact (Live a Little)’, ‘Breakers Roar’ and ‘Keep It Between the Lines’.

Passage Du Desir

The artist’s most recent record, Passage Du Desir, marks Simpson’s departure and the arrival of a new alias, Johnny Blue Skies.

Although brand-new and a touch too fresh to gauge its impact, the 2024 effort is dazzling, flush with all the best of Simpson – his knee-buckling croon, his fearless lyrics – but Johnny Blue Skies brings to the record a fortifying lightness and a shiny new perspective.

Already, songs like the album’s spine-tingling ‘Jupiter’s Faerie’ and effervescent ‘Mint Tea’ seem poised to be celebrated within the artist’s esteemed catalog.

High Top Mountain

Simpson’s 2013 studio debut, High Top Mountain, is a difficult record to beat. In fact, it may just be neck-and-neck with this list’s number one pick.

While the release introduced many to his already time-worn sound and easy-on-the-tongue lyricism, High Top Mountain is special for other reasons. It’s a no-holds-barred collection, one that shrugs rules, expectations and even outcomes, one that finds Simspon hungry to simply make music. High Top Mountain set the stage for what would be the next decade of rule-breaking, genre-bending and game-changing music.

Today, many of the album’s offerings, like ‘Life Ain't Fair and the World Is Mean’ and ‘You Can Have the Crown’, have become inseparable from his catalog and are still heralded as some of his bests.

Metamodern Sounds in Country Music

The sophomore album is often the one that makes or breaks artists, and Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music did the former. When he very quickly followed up High Top Mountain with the 2014 release, he solidified his celebrity in the world of country music and began to attract praise as its savior.

Metamodern was vastly different from anything being released in the genre around that time, and while “Savior” may be a bit of a stretch, Simpson did alter our perceptions of what was sonically and thematically possible in country music. Flush with songs about the metaphysical, rippling against a warped country soundscape, Metamodern readied the genre for the future, Simpson’s footprint irremovable from the music we have today.

Metamodern Sounds in Country Music may very well live on as Simpson’s magnum opus. However, Johnny Blue Skies is just getting started, so more masterpieces may very well be on their way.