Top 100 Country music artists all time

Arguing the Top 100 Country Songs of all time becomes much more fun when you limit the list to one song per artist. Instead of letting legends with dozens of Top 10 hits fill a list of country’s biggest tunes, we’ve chosen only the most memorable, successful and influential cuts from 100 wide-ranging country music careers.

This means only one song from George Strait, one song from Garth Brooks, and one track from Dolly Parton are included in the final list of the Top 100 Country Songs. Throughout the rest of the month, Taste of Country will count them down, revealing the No. 1 song of all time on June 28, 2012.

Some — okay, many — of our choices are controversial, but each selection was weighed in terms of sales success, life on country radio, songwriting quality and influence on future generations. An ’80s hit that everyone still knows today has a good chance of finding a place in the top half of the list. Hours of mostly friendly debate, dozens of pots of coffee and maybe a few beers went into finalizing the order, which we fully expect to ruffle a few feathers.

With each post, the discussion may not be the ranking of a song’s place on the Top 100 Country Songs list, but whether that’s the best song from the artist. Leave all feedback in the comments section below. Feel free to let us know where we went wrong, but try to tell us where we got it right once in awhile, as well. Our editor can be a little sensitive… especially when she’s out of coffee.