Hunter Hayes

Hunter Hayes is Hunter Hayes' self-titled and debut major-label studio album which was released on October 11, 2011 by Atlantic Records.
==Album Background==
In 2009, Hunter Hayes moved to Nashville, Tennesse, and Rascal Flatts recorded a song that he co-wrote, "Play," on their 2010 album, "Nothing Like This." The producer on the Rascal Flatts album, Dann Huff, then teamed up with Hayes to produce Hayes' first major-label album after he signed a recording contract with Atlantic Records.
For the album, Hayes intended to do it his own way, "playing everything on the album, having fun and experimenting." He wrote or co-wrote every songs in the album, and played every instrument, and co-produced the project with Dann Huff.
==Tracklisting==
#Storm Warning
#Wanted
#If You Told Me To
#Love Makes Me
#Faith To Fall Back On
#Somebody's Heartbreak
#Rainy Season
#Cry With Me
#Everybody's Got Somebody But Me (featuring Jason Mraz)
#What You Gonna Do (duet with Ashley Monroe)
#More Than I Should
#All You Ever
==Chart Performance==
"Hunter Hayes" peaked at #18 on the Billboard 200 and #7 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart with 18,000 copies sold in the United States during its initial week.
With the success of the song "Wanted", sales of the album also increased. In June 2013, (on its 71st week), it jumped to #7 on the Billboard 200 with the release of the deluxe version of the album "Encore", selling 40,000 copies for the week.
The album was certified platinum by the (RIAA) on August 8, 2013. As of February 2014, "Hunter Hayes" (including the "Encore" edition) has sold 1,105,000 copies in the United States.
==Critical Reception==
"Hunter Hayes" was generally well received by the critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic thought that Hayes, "while happy with the middle of the road" and that it "also has crisp, bright, relentless melodies designed to win over any audience."
Billy Dukes of Taste of Country was impressed that Hayes wrote, produced and played every instrument on his debut album, but thought that the "lack of participants leaves a tonal homogeneity." He also felt the songs "feel at times plastic," but "what Hayes lacks in "wow" he makes up for with a consistency most artists hope to achieve by album three." 
Matt Bjorke of Roughstock was enthusiastic and considered it a "fantastic debut album," and that it "really only feels like the beginning of a superstar career for an artist who is able to rise above looking like the next matinee idol on the cover of this record."
Category:2010s albums
Category:Country
Category:Hunter Hayes albums