[1] In the issue of Billboard dated January 4, Garth Brooks was at number one with Blame It All on My Roots: Five Decades of Influences, its fourth week in the top spot.
Blake Shelton spent one week at number one with Based on a True Story..., which had originally topped the chart more than a year earlier,[4] and the same length of time with his next album Bringing Back the Sunshine.
Several of 2014's chart-topping acts, including Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line, Jason Aldean and Chase Rice, were associated with the so-called bro-country style, a sub-genre which incorporated influences from rock music and hip hop and often featured lyrics relating to partying, attractive young women, and pick-up trucks.
[10] Brantley Gilbert was another first-time chart-topper in June with Just as I Am,[11] as were Lee Brice in September with I Don't Dance and Sam Hunt in November with Montevallo.
[12][13] In April, Country Music Hall of Fame member Johnny Cash, who had died in 2003,[14] gained a posthumous number one with Out Among the Stars, an album of previously-unreleased material recorded in the 1980s.