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Fans may be arguing about the Kentucky songwriter’s left-field LP, but they’re also playing it a lot too: It debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n\tSince its July 25th release, fans have spent the better part of the last 10 days arguing, meme-ifying, and apparently, listening quite a bit to Snipe Hunter<\/em>, the latest album from country star Tyler Childers<\/a>. Produced by Rick Rubin, the Kentucky singer\u2019s sixth album has spawned a TikTok-viral<\/a> song about rabies, theories<\/a> about Beyonc\u00e9 shoutouts, and a glut of predictable discourse about whether or not Childers has abandoned his traditional sound and roots by making a bigger budget, more genre-defiant record.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tPlenty of fans seem to love the new record (including Rolling Stone<\/em>, which gave the album 4.5 stars<\/a> in a recent review). And plenty of fans are furious that Childers has embraced studio bells and whistles \u2014 there\u2019s vocoder and drum loops on some songs \u2014 and is no longer singing exclusively about hardscrabble Appalachian life \u00e0 la his 2017 debut Purgatory<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tThose in the latter camp appear to be just a vocal minority: Childers\u2019 Snipe Hunter<\/em> debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200, the weekly list of top performing albums in all genres. This marks Childers\u2019 highest-ever chart debut, after his last two albums, 2023\u2019s Rustin\u2019 in the Rain<\/em> and 2022\u2019s Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?<\/em>, debuted at Nos. 10 and 8, respectively.<\/p>\n