Kelsea Ballerini

February 13, 2023 at PST

Rolling Up the Welcome Mat - EP

The country hitmaker lets it all out on a heart-rending divorce EP.

6 Tracks

September 5, 2019 at PDT

homecoming queen? - Single

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March 19, 2020 at PDT

kelsea

Kelsea Ballerini emerged as a leading, youthful voice in country pop during the mid-2010s by forging a chummy connection with fans. She co-wrote everything on her debut The First Time, an effervescent album that reflected her insight into what it’s like growing up feeling full-strength feelings. By her follow-up, 2017’s Unapologetically, Ballerini was fine-tuning vocal inflections to achieve performances that felt savvier and more personalized. But there’s a more dramatic development on kelsea, her third album: She’s stepped into a producing role, emphasizing that she’s shaping her vision from all sides.

The overall effect of this new approach is one of unguarded closeness, but in actuality, it's her most sophisticated work to date. There’s almost startling clarity to Ballerini’s depictions of anxiety and introversion in “overshare,” “club,” “homecoming queen?,” “needy,” and “la.” It was a highly clever, and relatable, move on her part to craft an airy banger, “club,” about dreading the messy interactions of the late-night bar scene. The track “needy” is deceptively upbeat about the gravitational shift from frequent socializing to retreating into a romantic partnership, even as Ballerini’s choice of language subtly acknowledges insecurity. The wry, bouncy, pop- and hip-hop-influenced “overshare,” full of conversational detail, best captures what she’s up to artistically. “Truth is conversations make me anxious, even if we’re on a first-name basis,” she confides. “Same story for the hundredth time, and they roll their eyes ’cause it’s TMI.” But Ballerini also flexes her stylistic range by summoning the coy kinetic energy of “Toxic”-era Britney Spears during “bragger” and tweaking beloved country tropes elsewhere. The mischievous drinking tune “hole in the bottle” merges down-home chicken-picking guitar with digital gloss and a brisk beat, while “half of my hometown” is a fresh take on how a person’s affectionate relationship to where she came from can be uncomfortably altered by leaving.

13 Tracks

June 10, 2019 at PDT

Better Luck Next Time - Single

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June 8, 2021 at PDT

I Quit Drinking - Single

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August 10, 2023 at PDT

Rolling Up the Welcome Mat (For Good)

In early 2023, Kelsea Ballerini released her Rolling Up the Welcome Mat EP, a frank collection of songs she wrote and recorded with collaborator Alysa Vanderheym in the wake of her high-profile divorce. The songs span a number of the complicated feelings wrought by a difficult breakup, like the angry skepticism of “Blindsided” and the knowing regret of “Mountain With a View,” on which Ballerini reflects frankly upon the moment things really fell apart in her marriage. Rolling Up the Welcome Mat (For Good) expands upon its predecessor, offering new music as well as revisions of original tracks, like the live “Healed Version” of the heart-wrenching ballad “Penthouse.” The EP’s “Interlude” gets a “Full Length” treatment, while the already cutting “Blindsided” adds the sarcastic parenthetical “(Yeah, Sure, Okay)” to its title, as well as additional lyrics which Ballerini debuted during a performance on Saturday Night Live. Closing track “How Do I Do This” is brand new, serving as a cautiously optimistic capstone that especially emphasizes the “For Good” in the updated EP’s title.

7 Tracks

September 22, 2022 at PDT

SUBJECT TO CHANGE

Like many artists, Kelsea Ballerini took stock of her life during the pandemic, both personally and professionally. Having released her third album, kelsea, in mid-March 2020 and unable to tour in support of the LP, it felt like a natural time to reflect on her career thus far and dream of the next chapter. During this quiet period, her fourth album, SUBJECT TO CHANGE, began taking shape, its title a nod to Ballerini’s newfound acceptance of the impermanence and unpredictability inherent to life. “The theme was change and evolution and growing up, and a lot of contrast within that and juxtaposition within that,” Ballerini tells Apple Music. “And I loved the idea that we’ve all been really challenged by change the last several years, and by change that’s really out of our control, that’s kept us at home and all of that stuff. And so, I loved the idea of that being such a relatable, universal topic.”

SUBJECT TO CHANGE opens with its title track, an uptempo anthem that celebrates being open to growth and possibility. “IF YOU GO DOWN (I’M GOIN’ DOWN TOO)” takes cues from The Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl” and Taylor Swift’s HAIM collaboration “no body, no crime,” with Ballerini promising a friend that she has her back if shit hits the fan: “If it all blows up and we end up on the news/If you go down, I’m goin’ down too.” Another standout is “YOU’RE DRUNK, GO HOME,” a collaboration with Kelly Clarkson and Carly Pearce that makes good use of the trio’s combined talents, with a healthy dose of soul from Clarkson and Pearce putting her alto to good use in telling off a stubborn suitor. Here, Ballerini talks through a few of the album’s key tracks.

“SUBJECT TO CHANGE”
“I’ve always been really scared of change because it’s been something that has influenced my life in ways that I don’t always love or that I’m not always ready for. And I liked the idea of making a record, and especially starting a record, with a song that says, ‘But what if we take the power away from change?’ And whether it’s bad change or good change, it’s meant to happen for me in my life and where I’m supposed to get to. And when you take the power away from it and the fear of change away from it, and you just open your arms up to it, you start living.”

“IF YOU GO DOWN (I’M GOIN’ DOWN TOO)”
“One of the things that I’ve really realized in the last few years is how important female friendship is. ‘IF YOU GO DOWN’ is the last song we wrote for the record. And I was sitting around with Shane [McAnally] and Julian [Bunetta], and we had already cut most of the songs, so we called it the Hail Mary day. We’re like, ‘Just in case there’s anything else in the tank.’ I also wanted there to be what ‘hole in the bottle’ brought to my last record. It was this performance element where I got to be silly, and I got to just play a little bit more. So, with ‘IF YOU GO DOWN,’ I was like, ‘I want there to be this witty Thelma & Louise anthem where, when people come to my show with their girl gang, they can scream it with each other, and I can honor my friends, and I can also have a tinge of, ‘Oh, she listens to the Crime Junkie [podcast].’”

“YOU’RE DRUNK, GO HOME” (feat. Kelly Clarkson & Carly Pearce)
“I loved the idea of having not one but two different voices that have power and wit and sass. And I was looking at my friendships because I love collaborating with friends, and my first call was Carly. Without even hearing it, she said yes because we just go so far back, and we just have so much respect for each other. We’re ‘sweatpants friends’—that’s how I categorize it now. And then, I texted Kelly Clarkson the song, and she did vocals that night. We were just talking about women friendship in the industry. I’m offline friends with these two women, and they both inspire me so much in different ways and also in similar ways. And now I get to have this moment with them, and I just feel so proud to be able to be a part of that.”

“DOIN’ MY BEST”
“‘DOIN’ MY BEST’ is a celebration of taking ownership of cringe, because I think when you’re just like, ‘These are the things in my life that you’ve seen that are chaotic, and I understand they’re chaotic. Trust me, I’m experiencing it. It’s more chaotic than you’ll ever know, but here it is, and I’m truly just doing my best.’ I think just taking ownership of that and just going, ‘I’m a human, here it is’—there’s something that was so freeing writing that song.”

“MARILYN”
“‘MARILYN’ is the first song I wrote for this album. I wrote it in the summer of 2020, during the unraveling of all of our lives, of just taking the inventory, stepping back, being in the stillness. And to me, [Marilyn Monroe] is such a metaphor for—I can only speak for myself, but I feel like a very universal thought for us of just going like, ‘Man, we are conditioned, and we get met with a more celebratory response when we present beautifully.’ And there is always so much more going on. To me, she is just that metaphor, and it’s kind of the bigger sister to ‘homecoming queen?’. I wrote the song by myself.”

15 Tracks

October 25, 2018 at PDT

Unapologetically (Deluxe Edition)

That period of time between leaving high school and fumbling into one’s mid-twenties is difficult enough. Kelsea Ballerini had to navigate those years with the added weight of a good chunk of the country-music world watching, having opened that decade with the youthful country-pop of her 2015 debut, The First Time and finding a more mature voice on 2017’s Unapologetically. If her sophomore record is any indication, she got through the growing pains with grace, proving her readiness for more ambitious levels of stardom and expanding her sonic palette to include grander pop arrangements and R&B elements.

Maybe more significantly, the East Tennessee native embraces vulnerability in an intimate way on Unapologetically. The album is structured in three parts; in the first four songs, Ballerini deals with the fallout of the breakup she went through as her first album was released, delivering a pep talk to herself with the swaggering “Miss Me More.” In the middle third, she unpacks a period of self-discovery and acceptance of change, contrasting the leaps and bounds she’s grown since leaving home with the story of a former jock who can’t leave his football glory days behind on “High School.” And finally, she blossoms in the light of a new romance, as evidenced by the swelling title track, outfitted with choruses that seem to glow with the same energy as someone who’s just fallen in love.
Like a typical Ballerini album, Unapologetically finds her in the writer or co-writer chair for every song (apart from a couple of bonus tracks), showcasing her nuance as a lyricist and emphasizing her development as a songwriter. She cleverly subverts the dreamy doo-wop rhythm of “I Hate Love Songs” with a laundry list of romantic clichés she hates, building a sincere love song in the process. And she asserts her multitudes on the gentle “In Between” by accepting contradiction. It’s no small feat to pack such subtleties into country-pop’s confines, but with her second record, Kelsea Ballerini proves herself a pro—unapologetically.

15 Tracks

June 27, 2024 at PDT

Cowboys Cry Too - Single

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January 16, 2020 at PST

if we never met (feat. Kelsea Ballerini) - Single

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October 24, 2024 at PDT

PATTERNS

15 Tracks

April 7, 2022 at PDT

HEARTFIRST - Single

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November 7, 2019 at PST

club - Single

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November 12, 2020 at PST

hole in the bottle (with Shania Twain) - Single

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September 10, 2020 at PDT

ballerini

A common way to maximize the reach of a pop song, including one of a country-pop variety, is to release a big remix on the heels of the original. Half a dozen years into her Nashville hitmaking career, Kelsea Ballerini is no doubt familiar with this practice, but she chose an entirely different approach. On her March 2020 album, simply titled kelsea, she applied sheer, sprightly rhythmic production to acutely confessional material, but this companion piece, dubbed ballerini and recorded during quarantine, presents those same tunes with subdued, largely acoustic arrangements. In the new version of “overshare,” the singer-songwriter dials back her wryness to bring insecurity into focus. With its beat-driven energy stripped away, “needy” no longer sounds blissful, but a little uneasy at being in the grip of such emotion. Backed by string band accompaniment, Ballerini’s disgust for an untrue lover takes on a more plaintive quality in "love and hate." Together, the two sets, both of which she co-produced, are her artful way of laying her effervescent persona and embrace of vulnerability side by side.

13 Tracks

October 28, 2018 at PDT

We Were Like - Single

1 Trackfalse

April 4, 2024 at PDT

Love Me Like You Mean It (Reimagined) - Single

2 Tracks

August 21, 2016 at PDT

Audience Network Acoustic Sessions - EP

5 Tracks

June 20, 2019 at PDT

Miss Me More (Summer Mix) - Single

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January 16, 2023 at PST

Apple Music Nashville Sessions

Brand-new takes on some old tracks, plus a Fergie cover—all in spatial audio.

6 Tracks

November 8, 2018 at PST

This Feeling (feat. Kelsea Ballerini) [Remixes] - EP

4 Tracks

April 19, 2020 at PDT

the other girl (with Halsey) [the other mix] - Single

2 Tracks

December 8, 2014 at PST

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Single

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November 24, 2016 at PST

My Favorite Things - Single

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