Terry Allen‘s Lubbock (on everything) Appears on Rolling Stone’s List of “The 100 Greatest Country Albums of All Time”

Terry Allen‘s Lubbock (on everything) lands a well-earned spot on Rolling Stone‘s new list of “The 100 Greatest Country Albums of All Time,” which features a selection of studio albums (and several anthologies) that may help listeners answer the age-old question “what is country.” 

Allen’s satirical second album fills a scrapbook with character portraits from his West Texas hometown, but beneath the humor lies a love letter to Lubbock. Widely acclaimed as a masterpiece, Lubbock (on everything) has been a template for country-music outsiders making left-field concept records ever since.”   

Add this timeless record to your collection and while you listen, ponder Terry’s classic question, “Which country?” 

Check out the full list here and see purchase options and upcoming tour dates below.

$12.00$49.00

Purchase from PoB above or support via

9/10. The well of great songs here runs deeper than deep. A world of gridiron heroes gone to seed, factory workers who fantasize about Gay Paree, and women who refuse to be tamed by any guy dumb enough to try. The gold standard for a wry vein of Americana.

 Jason Anderson, Uncut

The 21 tracks on Lubbock (on everything) are rear-view mirror songs … restless travelogues, songs of feeling out of place and in search of home. Time changes everything, they suggest. 

– Dan Fox, Frieze

5 stars; ‘50 Essential Albums of the 1970s.’ Eccentric and uncompromising, savage and beautiful, literate and guttural.

– Rolling Stone

8.5. A lavish edition. Like any enduring piece of art, [it] embodies its moment while transcending it. This double-LP is still a powerful dreamscape, capturing a West Texas that may never have quite existed, but Lubbock (on everything) certainly makes it feel like it did.

– Pitchfork

Allen’s songs extract strangeness from the known world and use it as a means of acquiring greater knowledge.

– The New Yorker

He’s pretty close to a master lyricist.

– The New York Times

Raunchy, pithy, and deeply redolent … lines quiver with a raw vision rarely heard in folk or country.

– Pitchfork

A masterpiece. One of the finest country albums of all time, a progenitor of what would eventually be called alt-country.

– AllMusic

Genuwine laugh-a-minute highbrow-lowbrow. From football heroes gone wrong to noble floozies to farmers fiddling while Washington burns, he’s a tale-spinning poet of the Panhandle.

– Robert Christgau

The most succinct commentary on the West Texas condition ever captured.

– Texas Monthly

Riveting.

– NPR

Nobody else does country music like Terry Allen … There’s not a wasted word or extraneous musical lick. ­

– L.A. Times

4 stars. Like Randy Newman via Raymond Carver. As it progresses, Allen’s blend of compassion and despair satirises but ultimately celebrates the everyman. Like all great country albums, it’s really about everywhere and anywhere. Treat yourself to a road trip.

– Record Collector

Allen carries the dust of West Texas in his throat, with a voice like a coyote’s yip and a twang like wind-thrummed barbed wire. No singer personifies that region quite like Allen. Imagine Bob Dylan recording Blonde on Blonde down in Lubbock with a crack roadhouse band (led by producer/ steel virtuoso Lloyd Maines), or fellow Lubbockian Joe Ely cutting Rain Dogs, and you have an idea of Allen’s irascible sound and vision.

– Andy Beta, Bandcamp Daily

Terry Allen explored the weird fringes of American country music before most musicians knew the fringes were even there for exploring. His 1979 album Lubbock (on everything) is a stone-cold classic.

– Spin

Terry Allen is a Texas legend and a fucking genius. His masterpiece Lubbock (on everything) was/is a towering statement of both affection and disillusion… a classic. Terry Allen is an artist everyone should know. He simply defies gravity on this record.  

– The Big Takeover

4.5 stars. An awe-inspiring package with beautiful pictures, well-written essays and an interview with Allen that provides an oral history of the album. If anyone was in doubt from the start that Lubbock (on everything) was a work of art, they shouldn’t be now. Universal… transcends time and place. 

– All About Jazz

Revelatory. A masterpiece ….. You can feel the dust, the sun of Texas. Do yourself a favor, complete your Americana music collection with this album. Allen is the not-so-missing link between Townes and later masters like Isbell, Simpson, and Williams. 

– No Depression

I love Terry. He’s a funny son of a bitch.

– Guy Clark

People tell me it’s country music, and I ask, “Which country?”

– Terry Allen

Terry Allen Live Tour Dates and Events

On November 3-8, Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band will play the Outlaw Country West Cruise, sailing from Los Angeles, CA to Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada, Mexico.

Poster by Wills Brewer

On November 8, Terry Allen will perform at Zebulon in Los Angeles, in conjunction with his gallery LA Louver. Join the waitlist for tickets here.

Past Event Highlights

OFF THE RAILS benefit for SITE Santa Fe

In June, Terry Allen and Kurt Vile headlined OFF THE RAILS with covers of Townes Van Zandt‘s “Loretta” and Vile’s own song, “Bassackwards.” The concert was a benefit for SITE Santa Fe, taking place outdoors at Santa Fe’s Railyard Park.

Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival

Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band performed at Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival in May, at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA. The setlist featured a surprise appearance by David Byrne, who joined Terry onstage for two songs: Byrne’s “Buck Naked” (previously covered on Terry Allen’s 1996 album Human Remains) and “Gimme A Ride To Heaven Boy” from Terry Allen’s Smokin the Dummy.