After much anticipation, Kelsea Ballerini has released her fourth studio album – SUBJECT TO CHANGE that showcases the breadth of Ballerini’s sound – infusing pop and country with ease and bringing them to the mass market.
Sometimes albums pass you by, the singles more hyped than the meat of the material, with the artist putting their best tracks up front without much to back it up in the album tracks. SUBJECT TO CHANGE is not one of those records. After the disappointments Kelsea Ballerini clearly experienced with the release of her self-titled record – something she acknowledges on ‘DOIN’ MY BEST’ – she has taken stock and released a vulnerable and interesting album, both sonically and lyrically. It feels as though she has not taken herself too seriously on this record and instead released the music that she wants to release – and it’s an abundantly joyful new era that acknowledges the pain of the past, combining her pop sensibilities with her country roots with a newly found maturity.
Shortly before the release of SUBJECT TO CHANGE, Ballerini announced her divorce from husband Morgan Evans. Seen through this lens, the opening notes of the album are the hopeful and optimistic notes of a new era not just in her professional, but also her personal life as she takes on a new re-direction in her life. The track is a joyful celebration of this new era and the unexpected turns of life. ‘I’m subject to going from zero to feelin’ obsessed / To happy and laughin’, then being upset / But if one thing’s the samе / It’s that I’m subject to change.’ It’s an optimistic and vulnerable note to kick off the album. On this title track, she admits her own shortcomings and complicated nature, an idea that she carries throughout the album – nowhere more notably than on ‘WALK IN THE PARK.’ ‘Sometimes I’m a summer day, sometimes I start raining / Always one season away from everything changing / I’m always looking for greener grass, on a carousel that goes too fast / Up and down like a swing set heart, I’m no walk in the park.’ It’s a whimsical take on her own musings on her self identity, acknowledging her flaws, making her immensely more charming in so doing.
Riding out the disappointments of the past few years has clearly been done with the help of a legion of friends, the importance of which she acknowledges on the bold and immensely fun track – ‘IF YOU GO DOWN (I’M GOIN’ DOWN TOO)’ – on which she sings of the ride and die nature of a friendship. ‘I keep all your secrets by the dozen / You know where my skeletons sleep / Hypothetically, if you ever kill your husband / Hand on the Bible, I’d be lyin’ through my teeth.’With the help of a stunning banjo and fiddle part, Ballerini delivers a riotously fun track drenched in 90s country flair – a song bound to become an anthem to friendship. She returns to this idea on ‘I CAN’T HELP MYSELF,’ a bold and brash track on which she admits her inability to turn down a night out with the girls. It’s the very boldness of the track that underlines Ballerini’s ability to bridge the pop-country gap on this album – following the footsteps of her idol Shania – a note that she just missed on album three, as she grooves along on the track, with an underlying sassy backing retorts and a delicious strings part.
Despite the news of her divorce, there’s plenty of hope and celebrations of love on the record, nowhere more notably than on two of the lead-out tracks; ‘THE LITTLE THINGS’ and ‘HEARTFIRST.’ On the former, Ballerini celebrates the simplicity of true love – ‘Back to the basics ’cause they’re bigger than they seem, yeah / Give me that typical, simple love, it’s the little things, mm.’ There’s a delightful groove that underlines the track that is carried through on ‘MUSCLE MEMORY’ where Ballerini indulges in the pop sensibilities she found on kelsea, though it’s more maturely done. ‘My hands know just where to be / It’s muscle memory / And yeah, my body won’t forget our history.’ ‘HEARTFIRST,’ though, was a gem of a track to introduce this new era for Ballerini, artfully combining those pop sensibilities with a delightfully country-infused production, as she sings about having to be bold and fearless, falling ‘heartfirst’ when it comes to love. Finally, she hammers home the magical and celestial nature of love on ‘UNIVERSE.’ ‘Baby, you make the impossible / Feel like it’s all logical / Lying in your arms, could be Jupiter or Mars / You say I hang the stars in your eyes / But you put the universe in mine.’ Couched in a pop-tinged production, the track is compelling and charming.
There’s plenty of vulnerability and sadness on the album, but you have to dig a little deeper to get to it – this is no country ballad filled break up album. So, ‘LOVE IS A COWBOY’ much as it can be read as a love song, can also be a musing on the fleeting nature of love. ‘Makes your heart feel like wild horses in your chest / Trying to catch, it’s like tryna tame a wild, wild west.’ It’s a glorious track, with a cinematic instrumentation conjuring images of the Wild West itself.
Ballerini takes the theme further on ‘I GUESS THEY CALL IT FALLIN,’ where she muses on the concept of ‘falling in love. ’‘I guess they call it fallin’ ’cause you еnd up on your face / Sleeping by myself in a bed I didn’t make / Think it’s written in the stars ’til you’re all alone / Did you only get me high to let me go?’ Though the lyrics may be despondent, the tone of the track is elevated as it is couched in a more resplendent LA pop production that prevents it becoming a good old-fashioned country break up song. So too, ‘WEATHER’ offers another chance for Ballerini to dance out the toxicity of an old relationship. ‘I’m so tired of your weather / Stormy when we’re together / Yeah, we used to be sunny and seventy-five / We wеre dancing, baby, rain or shine / Had my dress in your drеsser / Now somehow, I need a sweater / How’d we go from summer to cold as ice?’
The last four songs on the record though are perhaps her finest work to date. Kicking off with her resplendent collaboration with Carly Pearce and Kelly Clarkson – ‘YOU’RE DRUNK, GO HOME,’ a riotously fun anthem in which the three women, each of who has gone through a well-publicised divorce, offer a brush-off to the drunken men who stumble across their path. ‘The way you’re slurrin’ and the way you stumble / Ain’t no way you’re gonna get my numbеr / Hey, walk away / So me and my girls can do our thing / I ain’t lookin’ for a one-night rodеo.’ It’s witty, clever and quick – combining three extraordinary women’s talents into a juicy, sassy and punchy number.
The three final tracks shift the tone. ‘DOIN’ MY BEST’ will intrigue even the most casual listener, with its hints about the downfall of her marriage (‘And therapy for one turned / Into therapy for two / When you get married that young, you got a lotta shit you gotta get through’) the disappointments of her last record (‘2020 was a weird year / Album dropped at a weird time’) and the demise of her friendship with Halsey (‘I was friends with a pop star / I put ’em on track four, but / Wish I could take it back, I would’ve nevеr asked / If I knew we wouldn’t talk anymorе’). Despite the seemingly salacious undertones, it’s artfully done and a track worthy for more attention than just headlines.. Don’t let ‘MARILYN’ pass you by – it is a spell-binding track, and incidentally the only solo write on the album for Kelsea, as she muses on this lush piano ballad about what lay behind the perfect face of Marilyn Monroe. ‘Was it worth it to seem so perfect? / Blonde and curves didn’t keep you from your skeletons / Was it lonely, show pony? / Did you miss Norma Jeane? / Or did you always wanna be Marilyn?’ It is no big stretch to see the parallels that Ballerini and Monroe share, and understand the true downsides of fame, and living your life with people holding their own divorced understanding of who you are aside from your real identity.
Finally on ‘WHAT I HAVE’ Ballerini takes stock on where she now is in life. ‘Cause I got a roof over my hеad / I got a warm body in bed / I’m doing alright right where I’m at / With what I havе.’ Through it all, on SUBJECT TO CHANGE, she seems to offer a definition of exactly who Kelsea Ballerini is today.
SUBJECT TO CHANGE offers proof – if you ever needed one – of Ballerini’s exceptional ability to tell a story. It’s an album that exudes joy and optimism, as she enters this new era in her professional and personal life. There’s a sense throughout the album that Ballerini is shaking off the shackles of who people think she should be and stepping into her true personal and musical identity. It’s an album that engages and improves with every listen, with more to unpack in the lyrics and instrumentation with each re-listen. More than anything though, it is immense fun and riotous joy that will stay with you long after you’ve finished with Track 15.
