Morgan Wallen's Dangerous remains one of the most influential country albums of the 21st century. Aside from changing the model for rollouts by embracing TikTok teasers and concretising an edgy new country-pop aesthetic, at a whopping 30 songs long, it completely tore up the rulebook on how long albums should be. Now, thanks to Dangerous’ immense success, 30-song albums are the norm.

During a new episode of Morgan Wallen Radio on SiriusXM, the Sneedville native reflects on how that sophomore project felt like the first time he truly took control of his sound.

Wallen muses, “Dangerous is special to me because it represents a time where I kind of took control of myself, really, of what I wanted to sound like, and I think that's really important”.

He expresses his gratitude to fans for giving him the space and loyalty to experiment with new textures, without feeling as though listeners will desert him if he strays too far.

The ‘Thought You Should Know’ singer-songwriter gushes, “Obviously a huge shout-out to my fans and everyone who's allowed me to dabble in all these different things and to allow me to express myself in those ways. I just hope you know that because you give me that space to work that I do work hard, and I do really enjoy doing it”.

Dangerous offered listeners the first real taste of Wallen's keenness to flirt with other genres and styles, after the decidedly Bro-Country blueprint of his debut album, If I Know Me.

From the dark, haunted ambience of ’Livin’ the Dream‘ to the trap-infused sonics of ’Wasted On You’, to the hints of the indie-rock sound that was to come on later projects on ‘Neon Eyes’, Dangerous shifted the goalposts of cross-genre blurring.

On Wallen's subsequent records, One Thing At A Time and I'm the Problem, he's doubled-down on his willingness to experiment with different sub-genres such as alt-rock and Hip-Hop, and he continues to tease much more in this vein in the future, even toying with the idea of one day releasing a full-blown House record.

Now, over five years after its release, Dangerous remains in the Top 20 of the all-genre Billboard 200. At the time of writing, the album has spent a total of 290 weeks on the chart, with 10 of those at No. 1. It currently sits at No. 16, with Billboard crowning the project the Top Billboard 200 Album of the 21st Century in early 2025.

Spawning now-iconic tracks such as ’More Than My Hometown‘, ‘7 Summers’, ‘Cover Me Up’, ‘Wasted On You’, ‘865’, ‘Heartless’, ‘Silverado for Sale’ and many more, Dangerous has undoubtedly become a touchstone in the modern country music landscape.

With Wallen launching his next chapter this summer with the pop-infused ‘Been By Now’, after another wildly successful project in the form of I'm the Problem, the ‘Last Night’ trailblazer is showing no signs of easing up on his dedication to pushing the boundaries of what is considered ‘country’, nor his domination of the charts.