Lauren Alaina‘s Stages album is out. The 17-track record is her first full-length album since Sitting Pretty on Top of the World came out in 2021. Stages is literally Alaina’s life in three stages: The Dreaming, The Breaking, and The Becoming. It covers Alaina’s life from her early days in Rossville, Georgia, the beginning days of her career, through relationships and heartbreaks, getting married, losing her father, and finding joy in becoming a first-time mother.

“I actually named the album after I had the project finished,” Alaina tells Everything Nash. “Which, usually going into an album process, I kind of have an idea. Like for the Road Less Traveled album, obviously I wanted to name it Road Less Traveled. But for this one, I recorded this music over four years. I’ve been working on this project with Big Loud since I signed over with them. And so much of my life has changed in that time.

“I became a mother,” she continues. “I got married. I lost my dad very unexpectedly. Those are really, really big life changes. And I recorded music before those things happened, and then I recorded music as those things were happening, and after they happened. I turned the album in, and was listening to the music and I was like, ‘What am I trying to say here?’ And the word ‘Stages’ came up.”

 

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Lauren Alaina’s “Never Been In Love” Duet With Kane Brown

Stages includes her current Top 10 single, “All My Exes,” a duet with Chase Matthew. But the record also has a duet with Kane Brown, on “Never Been In Love.” Close friends who went to middle school together, the collaboration comes nearly a decade after their monster “What Ifs” duet came out in 2017.

“‘Never Been in Love’ is one of the songs that we went back in and cut because of ‘All My Exes,'” Alaina reveals. “I had also written this song years before, but I was trying to do more of — not traditional country because I’m not a traditional country artist — but I was just trying to do things that really fell into the country sound for the whole record, and I’ve never done that. And now I still haven’t, because I guess it’s just not who I am, and that’s okay.”

When Alaina decided to release “Never Been In Love,” and make it a duet with Brown, she had no idea that the song would become her highest streaming debut with one of her songs. It was producer Ben Johnson’s idea to ask Brown to join her on the song.

“I texted it to Kane, and he responded immediately and said, ‘I’m in. This is fire,'” Alaina recounts. “The fans seem to really be loving it.”

Lauren Alaina Looks Ahead With the Release of ‘Stages’

Stages is not only Alaina’s first full-length record on Big Loud, but it’s also the start of an exciting new musical chapter for her.

“There are so many wonderful things happening right now,” the Grand Ole Opry member gushes. “I feel so grateful. I’ve been here for 15 years. The Road Less Traveled album was such a huge album for me, and then I went through kind of a transition with leaving Universal and going to Big Loud. I wasn’t really sure what my career would look like. And I just feel so grateful to have been here for 15 years and to have this momentum again, and just to still be in the game making music and doing what I love, and the fans still showing up for me.

“And I’m a mother now,” she adds. “I literally have all the things I’ve ever wanted. All of a sudden all my dreams have come true.”

Alaina’s headlining The Stages Tour kicks off on October 1.

All Of the Songs on Lauren Alaina’s ‘Stages’

1. “Babies Raising Babies (feat. Tyler Suddeth)” (Lauren Alaina, Ben Hayslip, Matt Jenkins)
2. “Those Kind Of Women” (Monty Criswell, Derek George, Lynn Hutton, Lainey Wilson)
3.“Household” (Lauren Alaina, Casey Brown, Lydia Vaughan, Parker Welling)
4. “Paints The Picket” (Johnny Clawson, Peytan Porter, Kyle Sturrock)
5. “The Ringer” (Mackenzie Carpenter, Josh Jenkins, Steve Moakler)
6. “Rings On The Table” (Claire Douglas, Adam James, Madison Kozak)
7. “If You Ain’t Gonna Love Me” (Lauren Alaina, Ben Johnson, Hunter Phelps)
8. “Walking On Broadway” (Marc Cohn, Ashley Gorley, Michael Hardy, Ben Johnson, Hunter Phelps)
9. “Better Off” (Lauren Alaina, Joe Fox, Matt Jenkins, Josh Miller)
10. “Raining Whiskey” (Ben Johnson, Jordan Minton, Hunter Phelps, Geoff Warburton, Victor Williams)
11. “All My Exes (feat. Chase Matthew)” (Lauren Alaina, Jimmie Gutch, Ben Johnson, Whitney Phillips)
12. “Daddy Shoots Straight” (Lauren Alaina, John Byron, Ben Johnson, Blake Pendergrass) ^
13. “Spin” (Lauren Alaina, Casey Brown, Lydia Vaughan, Parker Welling)
14. “Never Been In Love (feat. Kane Brown)” (Lauren Alaina, Ashley Gorley, Ben Johnson)
“15. Boots On The Ground” (Lauren Alaina, Adam James, Madison Kozak, Mikey Reaves)
16. “Little Things” (Lauren Alaina, Ross Copperman, Seth Ennis, Emily Falvey)
17. “Heaven Sent” (Lauren Alaina, Michael Hardy, Ben Johnson)

Photo Credit: Katie Kauss