When Tim McGraw debuted in the early '90s, few would have predicted that he would eventually take over Garth Brooks' position as the most popular male singer in country music. Yet that's exactly what he did, thanks to a string of multi-platinum albums. His sound epitomized the strain of commercial country that dominated his era: updated honky-tonk and Southern-fried country-rock on the up-tempo tunes; well-polished, adult contemporary-tinged pop on the ballads. McGraw simply wound up cranking out hookier hits on a more consistent basis than any of his peers. By the late '90s, he was not only a superstar among country fans, but a mainstream celebrity with a large female following. He signed to Big Machine for Two Lanes to Freedom, which was released in early 2013; the album spawned three back-to-back number one singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, including "Highway Don't Care" with Taylor Swift and Keith Urban guesting and Humble & Kin
