Photo: Getty Images
Kelsea Ballerini officially closed a former chapter of her life and turned to a fresh page on Friday (October 25).
Ballerini, 31, debuted her highly-anticipated fifth studio record, Patterns. The 15-track collection was written and produced by an all-female team (including Alysa Vanderheym, Little Big Town's Karen Fairchild, Jessie Jo Dillon and Hillary Lindsey), which Ballerini recently hailed in a Q&A on Instagram as “a think tank, and it was untouched by Nashville.” She wanted Patterns to encapsulate a sense of safety, and approached it with care after her last project. The team of powerhouse songwriters helped Ballerini solidify her confidence as she looked ahead to the next era in her music. Ballerini said she’s “so deeply honored that these women who are at the top of their game all the time really walked life with me for the last year and a half, and took the time to not only walk life, but then help me be creative. It was incredibly fulfilling.”
Ballerini, who performed some of her newly-released songs on the TODAY Show on Friday morning, also noted that Patterns is her first record that does not include a track written solely by her. Throughout her career, she’s felt the need to “prove” herself as a songwriter, and now, she felt a fresh sense of empowerment to break that pattern. The album is a collection that “marks the end of my saturn return (thank the heavens),” Ballerini wrote in a caption on Instagram when Patterns released at midnight.
Patterns follows Subject To Change, Ballerini’s latest full-length album that arrived in September 2022, and Rolling Up The Welcome Mat, a deeply personal EP and accompanying short film that dropped as a surprise in February 2023. The unexpected project captured Ballerini’s story of heartache and the beginning of her journey to heal after divorce. Longtime listeners of the East Tennessee-born artist’s music will catch Welcome Mat references in the lyrics of some of the tracks on the new record.
Ballerini released the EP just as she began dating Outer Banks actor Chase Stokes, who inspired some of the tracks on Patterns. Ballerini sent Stokes a DM on Instagram in December 2022. The pair sparked relationship rumors when Stokes posted a photo sitting closely with Ballerini at the College Football Playoff National Championship in January 2023. She confirmed the budding romance in an interview the following month, and wrote in an anniversary tribute earlier this year: “thanks for making me write love songs. 🤍” Stokes appeared in the recently-premiered music video for “First Rodeo,” a ballad that captures Ballerini’s emotions as she opens herself up to love again after divorce. Though, Ballerini said she didn’t aim for Patterns to be full of “mushy, gushy” romantic tracks.
“I think that people probably expect this really happy-go-lucky, love, mushy, gushy record from me. That’s not the case,” she told The Associated Press when she announced the album. “And I’m really proud of that. It would have been easy to, I think, just collect the really beautiful parts of my life that I’ve dusted off and found the last couple of years. But that’s not the fullness of my experience.”
Instead, Patterns blends love songs with introspective tracks about the singer-songwriter’s lifelong habits — including ones to enhance and others to break — a heartfelt love letter to her mother, a song to poke fun at her previous breakup anthems, a duet with Noah Kahan, a NSFW track, a salute to best friends, and more.
- Patterns
- Sorry Mom
- Baggage
- First Rodeo
- Nothing Really Matters
- How Much Do You Love Me
- Two Things
- We Broke Up
- Wait!
- Beg For Your Love
- Deep
- Cowboys Cry Too, with Noah Kahan
- I Would, Would You
- This Time Last Year
- Did You Make It Home? (Outro)
Ballerini wrote in her Instagram caption that she took “the beautiful and brutal look into myself and the people I love the most. The celebrations and challenges in the name of betterment, growth, and all around elevated vibes. The healthy habits that I hold close and the ones that gotta go.
“Written from my truest self, but meant for you to project onto your own lives and try on for fit,” she continued “Whether you relate, want a song to cry in the back of an Uber music video style to, dramatically/drunkenly tell someone how much you love them, or scream sing about moments gone wrong before they went right…it’s all yours.” Ballerini said she embraced a sense of freedom unlike ever before while creating the record, and credited “the angel-on-earth women who made it with me…the womanhood we made this with will forever be the award. ITS OUT NOW….’BABY WHAT THE F*CK?!’”
Ballerini is celebrating Patterns’ long-awaited arrival with an album release show at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The sold-out show on Tuesday evening (October 29) will also include sister duos Aly & AJ and Tigirlily Gold in the lineup. Ballerini’s album release show takes place shortly after she announced her first-ever headlining arena tour with special guests Maisie Peters and Marynn Taylor, slated to kick off in January. Tickets will be available to the general public on November 1. See the dates here.
“The whole time I was making this album, I was visualizing and dreamscaping ways to bring it to life for our live show, and it was something I couldn't wait more than five days after its release to do,” Ballerini said in a statement. “When good things happen, when new chapters begin, you want to share them with your people. This time around, it just so happens to be in a bucket list venue in the heart of a city that is landmarked heavily in the music and visuals of PATTERNS. I'm so giddy to be celebrating this album release at Madison Square Garden...see you in New York City!”
Find the full Patterns album on iHeartRadio here, and listen to some of the tracks below.