Anne Wilson‘s Stars album is out. The 12-track record, co-written entirely by Wilson, is her third project released on Capitol CMG, coming more than three years after her debut My Jesus came out in 2022.

When Wilson’s freshman album came out, she was new to embracing her role as a singer-songwriter, an evolution that came following the tragic and sudden death of her brother, Jacob, in 2017. Wilson followed My Jesus with Rebel, out in 2024, coming full-circle in her journey with Stars.

“It feels dreamy. It feels coming of age,” Wilson tells Everything Nash. “It also feels reflective on childhood and Jacob dying. Honestly, I feel like a lot of what people have been saying to me is, it feels like it’s a trilogy. It’s the third album to wrap up between My Jesus and Rebel. It almost feels like turning 23 was huge for me because it was the age that my brother was when he passed away. And so it’s like this grief milestone of turning the age my brother was, and then realizing I’m gonna get to live longer than he got to.

“So somehow it just feels like it all ties together in this big bow, honestly, of the last eight years of my life,” she adds. “And then turning 23 to wrap it up. So it’s a special album. It feels the most authentic to anything I’ve ever done before, I think.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Anne Wilson (@annewilsonmusic)

Anne Wilson Reflects On Her Journey From ‘My Jesus’ To ‘Stars’

My Jesus is a gospel album, with hit singles like the title track and “Sunday Sermon.” Rebel became more of a country crossover, a project that includes collaborations with Lainey Wilson, Jordan Davis, and Chris Tomlin. Now, with Stars, Wilson bridges the gap between both Christian and country, along with showing her maturity and evolution as a songwriter, artist, and performer.

“I think I’ve always just been authentic to where I’m at in the moment,” says the singer. “My Jesus was that. Rebel was authentic, and now Stars is authentic. It’s interesting too, ’cause I’m growing up while I’m putting out these albums, I’m literally still only 23. I put out my first [album] when I was 19, wrote those songs when I was 17. That’s literally like a child. That’s so young. And so I’m growing up with these albums. Every album, my voice is different…. Every album, my voice sounds a couple years older and more mature, and more developed with the tone and the texture of it.”

Wilson teams up once again with Matthew West and Jeff Pardo to write the songs on Stars, although Wilson concedes that her songwriting has come a long way in the last few years.

“The older I get, the more songs I write, the better they’re gonna get in theory,” Wilson says. “And then too, just discovering who I am as a person. Growing up and realizing like, okay, God’s teaching me this right now. Or I’m learning this, or I’m 23 now, and I’m discovering this. Each year, each record is just growth. And so I think that this feels authentic to where I am right now in my life. And this one has definitely those core Christian country roots to it. But it also has a song like ‘Carry Me,’ for example.  I would consider that more pop leaning and less country. But all of it’s authentic. So I’m always just gonna put out songs that feel like me, and not really worry about where they fit in the genre space.

The Story Behind the Title Track of ‘Stars’

Wilson penned the title track of Stars with Pardo and West. The song is an homage to Wilson’s love of astrology, and her former dreams of being an astronaut, dreams she thought would come true until her life changed when her brother passed away.

“I wanted to work for NASA and that was my dream,” Wilson says. “And then everything changed. My brother passed, and I exchanged my dream for what God wanted for me. I said, ‘Okay, God. Here’s what I want to do. And He said, ‘Okay, here’s what I want you to do.’ And it was two different things. It was music, but now looking back, music is my dream. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else about music. So it’s just cool to see how God has been writing my story all along, and to see how He’s been bringing it all to fruition for this point in time.”

All Of the Songs On ‘Stars’

See a track list for Stars below. The album is available now at AnneWilson.com, and on all streaming platforms.

Stars Track List:

1. “Stars” (Written by Anne Wilson, Jeff Pardo and Matthew West)
2. “God Story” (Written by Anne Wilson, Jeff Pardo and Matthew West)
3. “’Til The Road Runs Out” (Written by Anne Wilson, Jeff Pardo and Matthew West)
4. “Devil Is Too” (Written by Anne Wilson, Jeff Pardo, Emily Weisband and Matthew West)
5. “Hold Your Horses” (Written by Anne Wilson, Jeff Pardo, Matthew West and Trannie Anderson)
6. “Jesus On The Radio” (Written by Anne Wilson, Jeff Pardo, Matthew West and Trannie Anderson)
7. “Dead In The Water” (Written by Anne Wilson, Jeff Pardo, Matthew West, Trannie Anderson and Andy Albert)
8. “Carry Me” (Written by Anne Wilson, Jeff Pardo, Matthew West and Trannie Anderson)
9. “The Carpenter” (Written by Anne Wilson, Blake Pendergrass, Jeff Pardo, Josh Miller, Matthew West)
10. “Those People” (Written by Anne Wilson, Jeff Pardo and Matthew West)
11. “Still Do” (Written by Anne Wilson, Trannie Anderson, Jeff Pardo and Matthew West)
12. “Twenty Three” (Written by Jeff Pardo, Anne Wilson and Matthew West)

Photo Credit: Sophia Mantinazad