Bigger (album)
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''Bigger '' is the sixth studio album by American
country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...
duo
Sugarland Sugarland is an American country music duo founded in Atlanta, Georgia. The duo consists of singer-songwriters Jennifer Nettles (lead vocals) and Kristian Bush (vocals, guitar, mandolin). They were founded in 2002, when Kristen Hall (vocals, gu ...
. It was released on June 8, 2018, through
Big Machine Records Big Machine Records is an American record label, distributed by Universal Music Group. Big Machine is based on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee. The label was founded in September 2005 by former DreamWorks Records executive Scott Borchetta and ...
. This is their first album in eight years since 2010's '' The Incredible Machine'', and first on Big Machine.


Background

After a five-year hiatus, at the 51st Annual CMA Awards, Bush and Nettles reunited to present Vocal Duo of the Year. Nettles mentioned all the years that Sugarland won Vocal Duo of the Year, "2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011…and well, who knows?", teasing new music from the duo. After the ceremony, the two tweeted a photo of themselves at the CMA's with the caption #StillTheSame. The lead single "Still the Same" was released on December 21, 2017. Sugarland announced the album, album title and track listing on April 12, 2018. One of the songs on the album, "
Babe Babe may refer to: * Babe, a term of endearment * A newborn baby * An attractive (especially female) person People * Babe (nickname), a list of people * Jerome Babe (1837–1893), American inventor and miner * Thomas Babe (1941–2000), Ame ...
" features American singer-songwriter
Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Known for her autobiographical songwriting, artistic versatility, and Cultural impact of Taylor Swift, cultural impact, Swift is one of the Best selling artists, w ...
. Swift wrote the song with
Train A train (from Old French , from Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles th ...
frontman Patrick Monahan for her 2012 studio album ''
Red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...
'' but the song didn't make the album. After the CMA's Swift got in touch with Sugarland, told them how excited she was that they were getting back together and mentioned she had a song for them. This is the first song Sugarland have recorded that wasn't written by Bush and Nettles.


Promotion

Sugarland performed for the first time in five years at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2018, and performed "Still the Same". On May 8, 2018 they performed their second single "Babe" on ''
Live with Kelly and Ryan ''Live with Kelly and Mark'' (or simply ''Live'') is an American syndicated morning talk show hosted by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. Executive produced by Michael Gelman, the ''Live with...'' show formula has aired under various hosts sinc ...
'' becoming the debut televised performance of the song; the duo then performed the title-track "Bigger" off-camera just for the studio audience. The duo supported the album on the ''Still the Same Tour'' which began on May 4, 2018, in
Durant, Oklahoma Durant () is a city in Bryan County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 18,589 in the 2020 census. It serves as the capital of the Choctaw Nation, and is the largest settlement on the reservation, ranking ahead of McAlester and Po ...
and concluded later in the year on September 9, in
Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
, Pennsylvania.


Singles

" Still the Same" is the lead single from the album and was released on December 21, 2017. "
Babe Babe may refer to: * Babe, a term of endearment * A newborn baby * An attractive (especially female) person People * Babe (nickname), a list of people * Jerome Babe (1837–1893), American inventor and miner * Thomas Babe (1941–2000), Ame ...
" featuring
Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Known for her autobiographical songwriting, artistic versatility, and Cultural impact of Taylor Swift, cultural impact, Swift is one of the Best selling artists, w ...
, the second single from the album, was released on April 20, 2018.


Promotional singles

The title-track, "Bigger", was released as a promotional single on April 12, 2018. "Mother" was released April 27, 2018 as another promotional single.


Critical reception

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of
All Music AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the datab ...
gave it four out of five star rating saying, that the album "does indeed deliver on its titular promise to be a grand, majestic album, but emotions are not in its skyscraper sweep." Brittany McKenna of ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...
'' was positive saying, "The arrangements of ''Bigger'' are grander, the vocals more theatrical, and the themes – which occasionally veer into the political – decidedly more topical. The album takes cue from current trends while adamantly retaining the spirit that made their songs like "Stay" such massive hits. In other words, it's still a Sugarland record, but one tailor-made for our odd moment, where female voices like Nettles' are louder than ever thanks to movements like #MeToo and Time's Up but still largely missing from country radio." Jermey Burchard of ''Wide Open Country'' describes the album as "their best yet", and they "are coming back into the county landscape at more creative and promising timing."


Commercial performance

''Bigger'' debuted at No. 2 on Top Country Albums based on 30,000
album equivalent units The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, often shortened to just unit, is a sales metric in the music industry that defines the number of songs streamed and songs downloaded equal to one traditional album sale. The album-equivalent unit ...
, 26,000 of which are traditional album sales. It sold another 5,000 copies (7,600 units) the second week. It has sold 57,500 copies in the United States as of December 2018.


Track listing

Adapted from ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...
''.


Personnel

Credits adapted from
AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
. Vocals and songwriting *
Kristian Bush Kristian Merrill Bush (born March 14, 1970) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Bush is one half of the country music duo Sugarland with Jennifer Nettles, and was a member of the folk rock duo Billy Pilgrim (band), Billy Pi ...
– vocals, songwriter * Amie Miriello – background vocals * Patrick Monahan — songwriter *
Jennifer Nettles Jennifer Odessa Nettles (born September 12, 1974) is an American singer, songwriter, actress and record producer. Nettles is the lead vocalist of the duo Sugarland alongside Kristian Bush, and prior to this she fronted the Atlanta-based bands ...
– vocals, songwriter *Tim Owens — songwriter *
Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Known for her autobiographical songwriting, artistic versatility, and Cultural impact of Taylor Swift, cultural impact, Swift is one of the Best selling artists, w ...
– background vocals, featuring vocals and songwriter Musicians *David Angel – violin *Monisa Angell – violin *Tom Bukovac – electric guitar *Brandon Bush – keyboards *Kristian Bush – acoustic guitar, electric guitar,
mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...
*Paul Bushnell – bass guitar *Wei Tsun Chang – violin *Janet Darnell – violin *Alicia Enstrom – violin *Victor Indrizzo – drums *Shawn Pelton – drums *Carole Rabinowitz – cello *Danny Rader – electric guitar *Justin Schipper – steel guitar *Kristin Wilkinson – violin *Karen Winkelmann – violin Production *Austin Atwood – assistant *Sandy Spika Borchetta – art direction *Sean R. Badum – assistant engineer *Brandon Bush – production coordinator, string arrangements *Kristian Bush – photography, producer, programming *Adam Chagnon –
engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...
*Justin Ford – art direction, graphic design *
Ted Jensen Ted Jensen (born September 19, 1954) is an American mastering engineer, known for having mastered many recordings, including the Eagles' '' Hotel California'', Green Day's '' American Idiot'' and Norah Jones' ''Come Away with Me''. Early life ...
mastering *Kevin Kane – assistant *Nick Karpen – mixing assistant * Shervin Lainez – photography *Chris Lord-Alge – mixer *Jennifer Nettles – producer *Juilan Raymond – producer *Zoe Rosen – assistant, production coordinator *Brianna Steinitz – production coordinator *Tom Tapely – engineer *Myles Turney – assistant engineer *Butch Walker – vocal producer *Jeremy Wheatly – mixer *Howard Willing – string engineer


Charts


Weekly charts


Year-end charts


References

{{Authority control 2018 albums Big Machine Records albums Sugarland albums Albums produced by Julian Raymond Albums produced by Kristian Bush