After months of teasing new music, Kelsea Ballerini finally gave fans a taste of what she’s been working on in the studio with the release of her emotional new single, “homecoming queen?” earlier this month.
With its vulnerable lyrics and minimal production, “homecoming queen?” is more traditional leaning than the rest of Ballerini’s catalog. So can fans expect more of that sound on her upcoming album? In a recent interview with Music Week, the Tennessee native addressed just that, revealing that fans can expect “all the things” on her third studio album.
“So far on this record, there’s just a lot going on. I mean, ‘homecoming queen?’ [is] a tell of that, there’s a lot more country. There’s also a lot more country pop,” she explained. “We have a song with horns, we have a song with a string quartet. We have two collaborations.”
The new album, which she says is slated to release in the Spring of 2020, will be quite a bit different and her previous body of work.
“Unapologetically was a concept record – top to bottom, if you listened to it, it told a story. This is opposite of that,” she revealed. “It’s quite liberating – this one’s just like, ‘Here you go, try and figure this out!’”
With 10 songs already making the cut for the record, Ballerini has her sights set on adding at least two more to the mix before wrapping up production.
“The first 10 songs are the ones that are singles or that feel mainstream and good for radio,” she said. “I want to get those all mixed and mastered and then be like, ‘OK, I want to do a weird song and a song that is going to crush live but will never be a radio single. I can play with the rest of it!”
Kelsea Ballerini is currently in Australia where she is scheduled to perform at the Country to Country Festival.
