Morgan Wallen’s Double Album ‘Dangerous’ Was Originally a ‘Pipe Dream’

On Jan. 8, Morgan Wallen released his highly-anticipated sophomore album, Dangerous: The Double Album. With 30 songs on the standard edition and an extra two on a deluxe edition available at Target, Dangerous has a song for every mood, though Wallen initially wasn’t sure a double album was something he would be able to pull off this year.

“At the beginning of 2020, we probably had about 20 songs that we felt were ready to be recorded that we felt were worthy of being recorded,” he recently shared with PopCulture.com and other outlets, noting how he and manager Seth England “joked about doing a double album just because, you know, 20 is a weird number.”

“You can either whittle it down and get to 15 or you can maybe put out five here, 10 there, something like that,” Wallen explained. “You know, there’s all kinds of things you can do with 20 but we just, for some reason, gravitated towards the idea of a double album.”

The 27-year-old added that he “personally didn’t think it was going to be possible” because of the heavy touring schedule he had planned for 2020. “I didn’t think I was going to have enough time to put that much effort and the proper amount of effort into doing an album like that,” he said. “So I kind of just passed it off as a pipe dream, almost.”

When the pandemic began, Wallen shared that he was able to write “four or five songs,” which pushed his total collection to a number around 25 “that made me feel confident that it would actually be something that we can do.” “We ended up with 30, it’ll be 32 eventually when the exclusive tracks come out,” he continued. “But you know that was never the goal number, we didn’t really have a goal number in mind. It’s kind of just what happened.”

Dangerous spans a wide range sonically and topically, with the first disc allowing the Tennessee native to express his more introspective side and the second containing what Wallen described as songs that are “a little more rowdy.” With the majority of tracks co-written by the CMA Award winner along with contributions from songwriters like Eric Church and Thomas Rhett, the double album is the next step in Wallen’s career that his fans have been waiting for.

“I felt that every song was unique and told a unique story and I was proud of all of them. So we just kind of said, ‘Why not?’” he mused. “And especially right now I think people are really eager for music and they need music. I need it, so I don’t know, it just seemed like the right time to do something like this. It was a lot of work but it was … It’s been very rewarding so far and I’m really proud of what we came up with.” You can stream Dangerous here.