Kelsea Ballerini Gives Update on Next Album: 'There's Just a Lot Going On'

Fans are eagerly awaiting the release of Kelsea Ballerini's third studio album. Although Ballerini has yet to reveal a release date or title, the 26-year-old does hint that the project is quite eclectic, with a little something for everyone.

"So far on this record, there's just a lot going on," Ballerini told Music Week. "I mean, 'homecoming queen?' is a tell of that; there's a lot more country. There's also a lot more country pop. We have a song with horns, we have a song with a string quartet. We have two collaborations. Unapologetically was a concept record – top to bottom, if you listened to it, it told a story. This is opposite of that. It's quite liberating – this one's just like, 'Here you go, try and figure this out!'"

Ballerini knows for sure there will be at least ten songs on the next set of tunes, but hints there might be one or two more.

"The first 10 songs are the ones that are singles or that feel mainstream and good for radio," said the singer. "I want to get those all mixed and mastered and then be like, 'OK, I want to do a weird song and a song that is going to crush live but will never be a radio single. I can play with the rest of it!"

Ballerini chose "homecoming queen?" to introduce her third project. The song, which Ballerini wrote with Jimmy Robbins and Nicolle Galyon, resonates closely with her own life, even though she never claimed the title.

"Super close. The homecoming queen is just the metaphor we used; I was never the homecoming queen, I was whatever the opposite of that was! But Nicolle, who I wrote it with, was the homecoming queen, so we both had different perspectives on that metaphor. To me, it's just the person who seemingly always has it together and has a charmed life and all that. The reality is that nobody does, truly. I think we live in a world right now where we all feel like we have to be filtered, perfect and happy all the time... And it's unrealistic.

"It leads to a lot of anxiety. I just wanted to honestly give myself the permission to be like, 'You're allowed to have a bad day, feel insecure, grow and push through that, and then have a good day.' It was a song about giving myself permission to feel however I feel."

Photo Credit: Getty / Astrid Stawiarz