Cassadee Pope Releases Acoustic Album ‘Rise and Shine’: ‘This Is For You’ (Exclusive)

Cassadee Pope came up with the idea for her new acoustic album, Rise and Shine, during quarantine, recording the project after concluding that though she might not be able to record something with a full band due to the pandemic, she still wanted to release new music to “help aid people and their emotional journey through all of this.”

“I know we’re all kind of having an interesting time with it and just everything in the world happening is just kind of hard,” Pope told PopCulture.com for PopCulture @ Home. “So this project really was me trying to be like, ‘Here you go, cry to it, laugh to it, do whatever you need to do with this. This is for you.’”

The 30-year-old added that she really enjoyed creating the acoustic project, something she’s never done before. “I feel like it makes lyrics stand out on their own and I got to really focus on how my voice sounded,” she explained. “And it’s the first album that I co-wrote every song on and co-produced every song on as well. So it was just like a cool project thing that I just had an idea to do one day and two months later, it’s out or it’s gonna be out, so it’s kind of crazy.”

Rise and Shine features eight songs all co-written by Pope, including a duet with her boyfriend, Sam Palladio. “These songs have just always meant a lot to me,” she said. “I really tried to be intentional with the sound even though it’s acoustic, I still wanted to sort of give like a preview of what’s to come and that for my next full band project. I really want it to be an ode to what I used to do which is pop-rock, and I wanted this project to sort of guide that and guide people’s ears to that eventually.”

Pope released her album in three parts, leading with two songs before sharing the rest with fans in small installments, a decision she hoped would let listeners spend more time with each song. “I thought it would be a really cool way to tell the story,” she shared. “And that a lot of these songs are more reflective and they’re not necessarily where I am in my life right now. So I thought it’d be cool to release them and sort of have a yin yang.”

The singer acknowledged that “when you release an album all at once,” listeners can “sort of move on from it super fast.” “I wanted these songs to have their moments and I’m going to be highlighting them with content and weird videos and stuff,” she said. “So I just felt like, I don’t know when I’m going to be able to tour again, I don’t know what I’m able to get in studio with a full band so I’m just gonna milk this project and let people consume it at a steady pace.”

You can stream Rise and Shine here. For more on Cassadee Pope and all your favorite country stars, stay tuned to PopCulture for the latest in music, reality TV and more.