Kelsea Ballerini Revisits 'kelsea'

By Lauren Elizabeth Campbell, Editor-in-Chief

Kelsea Ballerini released her album 'kelsea' March of this year. She is now back with a stripped-down version of kelsea in her follow-up album, 'ballerini.'

Both albums feature the same 13 songs, but 'ballerini' takes on the heavily-produced, pop-country sound from kelsea, removing the polish and production, proving the songs can stand without it.

Ballerini expressed her enthusiasm for the album, which was released September 11th, and its changes from 'kelsea' on Twitter, "different keys, tempos, melodies, lyrics, production. each song has its own set of changes...all super intentional to make the lyrics hit different. I'm so freaking excited," wrote Ballerini.

The album is equally fantastic as it is smart. 'ballerini' shows off the strength of her songcraft while simultaneously giving fans a deeper look into her creative process, that only could have only happened by Ballerini believing these songs could stand on their own.

While studio-recorded, 'ballerini' gives an intimate, live-music feel because of its limited prodution.

After pressing play on the album, and listening to the first track, "Overshare," I instantly felt transported to Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe. The limited production and vocal-heavy focus surround any room its played in, like Ballerini is singing with her acoustic guitar and a limited-band right in front of you. This feeling continued throughout the length of the album.

And while the album release may look planned, Ballerini told The Tennessean it came from wanting to do something special with kelsea after all her other plans for it were cancelled due to COVID-19.

"And the truth is, I kinda detached myself from the project. I got bummed out because I loved the album that we made... Everything we planned for it went away," said Ballerini.

The idea for 'ballerini' came from collaborator Jimmy Robbins, who also worked on 'kelsea.' In Ballerini's own words, they scraped "everything except for the actual heart of every song and rebuilt it."

'ballerini' gave them the opportunity to test out new lyrics as well. While most lyrics remain the same, fans attempting to singalong to songs they learned off 'kelsea' will find themselves fudging lyrics, such as in "la," which changed the lyrics, "Saw me on the TV," to, "But which part is reality?"

They also tested how songs that featured other artists on 'kelsea' fared when sung solo. "half of my hometown," with Kenny Chesney, and "the other girl," with Halsey are only sung by Ballerini on the new album.

Both songs are more interesting with Chesney and Halsey, Chesney was Ballerini's Knoxville, Tennessee hometown hero, and the dynamic between 'ballerini' and 'kelsea''s emotional back-and-forth in "the other girl" is fantastic. However, we've already heard their duets, and the ballerini album version continues giving listeners what the songs would be like if she were able to tour with them.

'kelsea' is great, but ballerini is the imaginative album we all need.