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It's safe to say it's a pretty brilliant time to be a country music fan - we're being treated to more music than ever, with a dizzying amount of new releases landing on our playlists every Friday, while artists like Ella Langley, Morgan Wallen, Stella Lefty and Taylor Swift ensure the genre remains at the business-end of the charts.
But even so, if we had one tiny complaint, it would be that one of country music's most influential artists - a true maestro of the genre - is still making us wait for new music.
Chris Stapleton dropped his last studio album, Higher, back in 2023, and since then we've had to make do with a smattering of collaborations and standalone releases, such as his F1 single, ‘Bad As I Used To Be’, and his Miranda Lambert duet, ‘A Song To Sing’.
So is it time for a new Chris Stapleton album? Or should we temper our 2027 expectations and prepare for another year without any sign of a new project from the Kentucky maverick.
Well, he gave us an indication that he wasn't working on anything during his New Heights appearance in February, when he shared, “I like it all when it’s working. I’m frustrated by it all when it’s not. I do enjoy writing, but I don’t do a lot of that anymore. I do enjoy going to the studio. The studio’s probably my favourite part, really, although, I don’t have any plans to go do much of that these days really either”.
In that same month, Stapleton had a very blunt response during his Rolling Stone interview about his 2026 All-American Roadshow Tour and his Traveler Whiskey Super Bowl advertisement, when the writer asked him whether he had been writing new music. The ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ crooner replied with a simple “Nope!”
All of which comes together to paint an admittedly bleak picture of the prospect of new music from Stapleton. But then, at the start of August, Stapleton offered fans a glimmer of hope that he was back in the swing of writing fresh material.
During a ten-minute rain-delay at his show in Cincinnatti, Ohio, Stapleton showed off his songwriting prowess by penning an entire song - yes, an entire song - during the break. He proceeded to debut the track, which is seemingly called ‘Waiting On A Lightning Strike’, for the crowd, leaving fans clamouring for a release date.
Sure, this doesn't necessarily prove anything with regard to Stapleton actively working on a new album. But the fact that he used those brief ten minutes to write does show that, despite what he said on New Heights, his mind has turned back to the craft.
Stapleton album announcements usually drop like bolts from the blue, with everything kept under wraps until the official unveiling - much like we saw with Higher back in late 2023.
Stapleton is one of the most prolific songwriters in modern country music, having penned a dazzling array of songs for other artists, as well as having a hand in creating the majority of his own music. When the time does come for a new Stapleton project, we suspect we won't hear much about it until he shares the official announcement.
The other thing we have in our favour as fans, you could argue, is the fact that Stapleton has never made his listeners wait longer than three years for an album before.
After his double release of From A Room in 2017, he shared Starting Over three years later, and then Higher three years after that. It's currently been three years since Higher.
There's nothing concrete just yet, but rest assured we'll be keeping our fingers crossed that we'll get some new music from this country trailblazer before the year is out...
