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Kelsea Ballerini debuted an unreleased track from her upcoming deluxe album when she took the stage on Wednesday evening (February 26) in Fort Worth, Texas.
Ballerini nearly closed her arena show with “Penthouse,” a powerful ballad that appeared on her deeply vulnerable 2023 EP, Rolling Up The Welcome Mat. She concluded the song and paused for the audience’s applause and cheers, and when the lights came back up, she told the crowd that “this is normally where the night would end. but I feel like it’s a good time to tell you that the Patterns deluxe (album) comes out March 7. There are five new songs on it. …my favorite is what we’re going to play for you tonight.” Ballerini played “Future Tripping,” an upbeat anthem she wrote with songwriter and producer Alysa Vanderheym, to close her arena show in Fort Worth.
She captioned the moment on Instagram: “watch until the end for a future trip 🙃”
The East Tennessee-born country star said “it just so happens I wasn’t done unpacking,” as she posted details about her extended studio album, Patterns. The original 15-track record includes “Baggage,” a track that quickly became a fan-favorite and a highlight moment in Ballerini’s first headlining arena tour. Ballerini shared the album artwork and five additional songs appearing on the 20-track project:
16. “To The Men That Love Women After Heartbreak (written by Ballerini, Jessie Jo Dillon, Karen Fairchild, Hillary Lindsey, Vanderheym)
17. “Future Tripping” (Ballerini, Vanderheym)
18. “Put It To Bed” (Ballerini, Vanderheym)
19. “Cut Me Up” (Ballerini, Dillon, Vanderheym)
20. “Hindsight Is Happiness” (Ballerini, Vanderheym)
Ballerini released the original version of Patterns on October 25, 2024, and celebrated with a sold out album release show a few days later at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Patterns was a highly-anticipated album after Ballerini delivered Rolling Up The Welcome Mat, the EP sharing her story of heartache and the journey to healing after divorce, and Subject To Change, her last studio album that arrived in September 2022. Patterns offered a more current snapshot into Ballerini’s life, including her two-year relationship with actor Chase Stokes, tributes to her closest friends, a personal song honoring her relationship with her mother, 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 when she released Patterns 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 added that 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.”
Ballerini recently hinted at changes to the set list of her arena show “because…hypothetically…new music needs a lil room,” she wrote in a caption on TikTok (and no, the “Future Tripping” reveal doesn't mean “Penthouse” will be removed from the set list, Ballerini confirmed to fans asking). Ballerini spoke about two of “the most magical” moments in the show — “Two Things” and “First Rodeo” — and teased up coming changes. Commenters quickly requested “To The Men That Love Women After Heartbreak,” a heartfelt ballad that Ballerini played for the first time at the Grand Ole Opry in November 2023. The song quickly became a fan-favorite after videos circulated on social media and Ballerini continued to play it at a few live shows, though fans were quick to notice it was not included on the original Patterns track list.
Ballerini “accidentally” confirmed a deluxe album was on the way in a recent interview with Byrdie. She told the publication: “It is a love record. It’s full of love—self-love, love for my family, my friends, my partner, whatever. But it’s the nuance of it, the growth of it, the tension within it… that is so necessary and interesting to me.
“I’ve always considered myself country-adjacent,” she said later of her musical style. “I grew up in East Tennessee, on a farm, and I write from a storytelling perspective. And I’ve dug my heels into the Nashville country music community–that’s home base for me. But I also don’t want to ever be boxed in, and I would urge every artist to feel that way. …Music is music. It should exist for everyone, and the whole point of country music, in particular, is writing the truth, writing your story. It shouldn’t matter if there’s a banjo or a beat drop. It’s been really beautiful to watch new ears come into this community, and I love being a small part of that.”
Ballerini’s ongoing headlining tour includes special guests Sasha Alex Sloan, Ashe, The Japanese House and MaRynn Taylor. See the list of tour stops here.