Maddie & Tae's response to learning that their debut album made Taste of Country's 100 Best Albums of the 2000s list is priceless.

The duo visited to talk about their new single, "Friends Don't," and 2019 tour with Carrie Underwood, but were first surprised with the news that Start Here cracked the Top 100. After a mini-celebration, the now older, more mature duo talked about writing and recording the album as teenagers.

"It went by really fast,” Tae Dye recalls. “We started writing for that record not knowing we were writing for our first record when we were 16. And then when we wrote ‘Girl in a Country Song’ — it all went really fast. We needed a record out two months later.”

"Fly," "Shut Up and Fish" and "Sierra" were the other singles from Start Here, released in 2015. "After the Storm Blows Through" and "Downside of Growing Up" are two more tracks worth highlighting, as called out on the 100 Best list. The duo's Start Here album checks in at No. 82.

Of course we had to ask what their favorite album of the 2000s has been. Both Dye and Maddie Marlow agree it was a Lee Ann Womack record.

"I'm gonna go with the Call Me Crazy (No. 57) record," Marlow says, explaining that it shaped her as a songwriter and a singer. For Dye it's There's More Where That Came From (No. 16).

"'One's a Couple' is on there —" Marlow says.

"Anything she released in the 2000s — I mean, geez. Love her," Dye adds.

There's no word on when the duo's next studio album will be released. They've been working at it for several years, even through the shuttering of one record label and a switch to a new one. "Friends Don't" is the lead single, with the rest promising a very vulnerable look at their lives as they matured from teenagers to 20-something women.

Here's the Full List of the Top 100 Country Albums of the 2000s

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