Since Brett Eldredge‘s debut studio album, Bring You Back, was released in 2013, the singer has been able to celebrate a solid string of successes: five No. 1 singles, seven songs certified platinum and nominations for a number of different honors, ranging from the ACM Awards to Teen Choice Awards.
Eldredge has also become known as a songwriter and singer who can craft both a foot-tapping party anthem and a stripped-down love song with similar ease. Songs that exemplify both edges of Eldredge’s spectrum appear on The Boot’s list of the Top 10 Brett Eldredge Songs.
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10
“Love Someone”
From ‘Brett Eldredge’ (2017)
From its lyrics to its melody, this Eldredge song captures its chorus line: “Sure feels good to love someone.” Eldredge co-wrote “Love Someone” with Ross Copperman and Heather Morgan; he says they tried to be clever, but “not overthink it.”
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9
“The Long Way”
From ‘Brett Eldredge’ (2017)
“The Long Way” finds Eldredge wanting to get to know a love interest — really know her. “Take me the long way around your town … I want the secrets you keep, the shine underneath / Of the diamond I think I just found,” he sings.
“I think [we live] in a world where we don’t do enough of that, have conversations, anymore,” Eldredge says. “I feel like it’s not as much of a thing as [it was for] my grandparents or parents. I want to encourage that as well.”
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8
“Gabrielle”
From ‘Sunday Drive’ (2020)
Eldredge’s 2020 album Sunday Drive is a turn toward a folkier sound for the singer, perhaps foreshadowed by songs such as “The Long Way.” For this project, though, Eldredge took himself mostly offline, retreated from Nashville and teamed up with Grammy-winning producers Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian (the duo who produced Kacey Musgraves‘ acclaimed Golden Hour) — and created a beautiful record. Sunday Drive is full of gems (for example, the title track, which Eldredge heard years before he recorded it, and the stunning album closer “Paris, Ill.”), but “Gabrielle” is a total earworm.
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7
“Somethin’ I’m Good At”
From ‘Brett Eldredge’ (2017)
If you could distill sunshine into a song, “Somethin’ I’m Good At” just might be that song. The handclap-driven tune is cheerfully self-deprecating, with declarations such as “I can’t change the world / No, I can’t change a flat” occasionally interrupted by genuine laughter from Eldredge. The premise of the song — which peaked just outside the Top 20 on the Billboard charts — is that the thing the narrator is good at is making someone smile … and if this song is any indication, Eldredge is right.
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6
“Drunk on Your Love”
From ‘Illinois’ (2015)
Eldredge gave “Drunk on Your Love” a pretty epic reveal: It debuted in the wedding video of Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard. The song, an impossibly cheerful and catchy celebration of early love, did pretty well outside of Hubbard’s nuptials, too: It reached No. 2 on the Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts and has been certified platinum — and has been unofficially certified by The Boot as “impossible to get out of your head.”
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5
“Lose My Mind”
From ‘Illinois’ (2015)
Eldredge’s first single from Illinois, his sophomore album, is a dang bop. Its lyrics detail that way that love — when it’s great — will make you feel: “Always find a way to mess me up and drive me wild … You make me crazy, and I kinda like it … I love the way you make me lose my mind.”
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4
“Wanna Be That Song”
From ‘Illinois’ (2015)
“I am passionate about every song I put out, but this is the story I’ve been dying to tell more than any other,” Eldredge said when releasing “Wanna Be That Song” in the spring of 2016. Co-written with Ross Copperman and Scooter Carusoe, it’s — in the singer’s words – ”a deep-rooted love song.”
“I picture love through music, always, and capturing those big moments in life of “I wanna mean something,'” says Eldredge. “The first time you heard [Bob Seger’s] “Night Moves,” you go back to that place every time — I want to be that feeling every time I come on the radio; I want to be that feeling to you every day that we’re together.”
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3
“Mean to Me”
From ‘Bring You Back’ (2013)
“Mean to Me” is one of those songs tailor-made for a wedding: “If mine could be the name that changes yours / The wine in your glass / The swing in your porch / The dollar in your pocket, and the peaceful in your sleep / Then I’d be what you mean to me,” Eldredge sings.
With a chorus about “dancin’ slow” in a “crowded room,” it’s easy to imagine this song as the soundtrack to a couple’s first dance. Eldredge’s starry-eyed ballad hit No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart and is certified gold.
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2
“Raymond”
From ‘Bring You Back’ (2013)
Eldredge and Brad Crisler co-wrote this song, inspired by Eldredge’s grandmother’s own battle with Alzheimer’s disease. “Raymond” is the story of a nursing home maintenance worker: One of the patients, Catherine Davis, who has Alzheimer’s, believes that the man is her son, who died in the Vietnam War in 1971. Story songs like this aren’t Eldredge’s M.O., but this one’s stunning.
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1
“Don’t Ya”
From ‘Bring You Back’ (2013)
“Don’t Ya” was only the second single from Eldredge, but in it, he sounds like a veteran in total control of what he’s doing. With a catchy chorus preceded by an even catchier bridge, Eldredge uses the song to flex two of his greatest assets: his charm and his voice. The certified-platinum single turned a sparks-flying meet-cute into a chart-topping hit.