21. February 2025
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Media Review

Kelsea Ballerini – Kelsea

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

Kelsea Ballerini - Kelsea

Kelsea Ballerini - Kelsea
4.4

Rating

 4.4/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Wide range of songs on 13 tracks
  • Influence of different music genres
  • Duet with Kenny Chesney

Flyctory.com Cons

  • Quite short tracks (average about 3 minutes)
  • I would sometimes love to have a

Kelsea Ballerini was one of the first country music artist I feld some sort of fandom for. On 20th March 2020, she already released her third album – of course, I was really curious about this long-player, which is simply named Kelsea.

Kelsea Ballerini – About The Artist

Kelsea Nicole Ballerini was born in 1993 in Mascot, a small village near Knoxville in Tennessee. She grow up as a single child, doing singing and dancing in her early ages. In her high school years, she moved from the Knoxville region to Franklin near Nashville and signed her first record deal at the age of 19. Already her first single, Love Me Like You Mean It, was a huge success and topped the US Country airplay charts. Her debut album The First Time lead to two more Airplay chart toppers, Dibs and Peter Pan, which is my favorite song of her and also topped the US Country charts. Apart from that, Yeah Boy also had good sales and airplays. On 3rd November 2017, she released Unapogetically, which also ranked in the Canadian and UK charts and contained three very successful singles, Legends, I Hate Love Songs and Miss Me More. The latter even topped the Canadian Country Charts. At the 2017 Grammy Awards, Ballerini was nominated as Best New Artist.

 

Kelsea Ballerini – Kelsea – Track by Track

The album contains 13 tracks and lasts 39 minutes. All song titles are in fact written in small letters – don’t worry about the Shift keys of my computer.

1. overshare

Groovy! I haven’t heard anything of her new material yet – and the more Kelsea is surprising me with that summer-alike, grooving, song. Hot candidate for the summer hit 2020 – if there is any way to enjoy Corona-summer 2020. I smile at the first song – which just cannot be a bad sign.

2. club

club is more of a classic Kelsea Ballerini sound to me and could also be a track on Unapologetically. Nice!

3. homecoming queen?

The slower and more intimate homecoming queen? has a significantly higher country music touch than the first two songs. Very focused on Kelsea’s voice. The initial single of the album is a nice track, definitely.

4. the other girl (with Halsey)

If you mix the first three tracks and mash them together, you are already quite close to the other girl: a pop track with a strong country track, rhythmic and with a touch of groove, still rather slow. Very nice production and arragement.

5. love me like a girl

love me like a girl is one of my favorites on the album. It has a lot of Kelsea, this lovely mixture of genre – and it leads to that Kelsea-smile in my face. Good one.

6. love and hate

love and hate is a lovely ballad with strings in the backing melody. A bit of kitsch, maybe, but kitschy music can be good one as well. Kelsea proofs it here!

7. bragger

This track starts very interesting, with some drums, rhythm and a melody very focused on Kelsea. With the chorus, it becomes a dance track, maybe even with some latino-pop touch. I like the song, I like the arrangement – but for some parts of it, I am just not sure whether it is the right song for Kelsea or whether it would be better with other performers.

8. hole in the bottle

You should definitely not take a pee break at this point of the album, the song is just 2:35 minutes long. Apart from that, the music video is quite cool to watch. Last, but not least I love the fusion of very classic country music sounds with rhythm and pop elements. Cool!

9. half of my hometown (feat. Kenny Chesney)

A duet of Kenny Chesney and Kelsea Ballerini per se sounds like an interesting one – and this song about home is definitely as good as I imagined a song of this setup. Thank you guys, it’s a pleasure!

10. the way i used to

She may not be the world greatest vocalist, but Kelsea just proofs with this album agian that it can be a lot of fun to listen to her music and this new album. the way i used to is a fusion of pop, dance, country and a touch of black music like a couple of other songs on it as well. Matter of taste, but I just love kelsea and her music.

11. needy

Thank you so much. I have to admit that – as much as I love her sound – I just waited for some modern country tunes as well. Needy is a song in the style of her first album. Love it.

12. a country song

After my country music needy experience with the eleventh track, a song called a country song feels promising to have another one. The beginning of the song offers a lot of spoken vocals and rhythm, but with the chorus latest, you are right in the middle of a country track.

13. la

The arrangement of this Los Angeles-themed song reminds me a bit of Taylor Swift’s rather recent publications. However, even as a Kelsea fan, I have to admit that Taylor just does it better. The song is definitely on the weaker side of the album to me.

 

Kelsea Ballerini – Kelsea – Spotify

Here is the Spotify widget, which allows to pre-listen to Kelsea:

 

Kelsea Ballerini – Kelsea – My View

The album is a bit too short maybe and one, two tracks are not really my taste of music and feel to be weaker than the rest – but overall, Kelsea is a great modern sound with a lot of country music influence. It is a compact and great listen. The issues I mentioned are to me compensated by the increased maturity of the album. Thus, it just deserves to be called a Top Pick!

 

 

Flyctory.com Country Music Reviews

Here are reviews of all country music albums and EPs I reviewed earlier on the website:

 

Country Music Picks

In the Country Music Picks, I share new songs with you. Here are all postings:

 

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