''Bigger '' is the sixth studio album by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

duo

Sugarland Sugarland is an American country music duo founded in Atlanta, Georgia. The duo consists of singer-songwriters Jennifer Nettles (lead vocals) and Kristian Bush (vocals, guitar, mandolin). They were founded in 2002, at which point Kristen Hall (vo ...

. It was released on June 8, 2018, through

Big Machine Records Big Machine Records is an American independent record label, distributed by Universal Music Group. Specializing in country and pop artists, Big Machine is based on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee. The label was founded in September 2005 by fo ...

. This is their first album in eight years since 2010's '' The Incredible Machine'', and first on Big Machine.

Background

After a five-year hiatus, at the 51st Annual CMA Awards, Bush and Nettles reunited to present Vocal Duo of the Year. Nettles mentioned all the years that Sugarland won Vocal Duo of the Year, "2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011…and well, who knows?", teasing new music from the duo. After the ceremony, the two tweeted a photo of themselves at the CMA's with the caption #StillTheSame. The lead single "Still the Same" was released on December 21, 2017. Sugarland announced the album, album title and track listing on April 12, 2018. One of the songs on the album, "

Babe Babe or babes may refer to: * Babe, a term of endearment * A newborn baby * An attractive (especially female) person People Nickname * Babe Adams (1882–1968), American Major League Baseball pitcher * Babe Barna (1917–1972), American Maj ...

" features American singer-songwriter

Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her vivid songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and wide media coverage. Bor ...

. Swift wrote the song with

Train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and Passenger train, transport people or Rail freight transport, freight. Trains are typically pul ...

frontman

Patrick Monahan Patrick Monahan (born February 28, 1969) is an American musician, singer and songwriter. He is best known as the lead singer and sole constant member of the band Train. He has collaborated with multiple artists and recorded a solo album, ''Last ...

for her 2012 album ''

Red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

'' but the song didn't release in the album. After the CMA's Swift got in touch with Sugarland, told them how excited she was that they were getting back together and mentioned she had a song for them. This is the first song Sugarland have recorded that wasn't written by Bush and Nettles.

Promotion

Sugarland performed for the first time in five years at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2018, and performed "Still the Same". On May 8, 2018 they performed their second single "Babe" on ''

Live with Kelly and Ryan ''Live with Kelly and Ryan'' (or simply ''Live'') is an American syndicated morning talk show hosted by Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest. Executive produced by Michael Gelman, the ''Live with...'' show formula has aired under various hosts since ...

'' becoming the debut televised performance of the song; the duo then performed the title-track "Bigger" off-camera just for the studio audience. The duo supported the album on the ''Still the Same Tour'' which began on May 4, 2018, in

Durant, Oklahoma Durant () is a city in Bryan County, Oklahoma, United States that serves as the headquarters of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. The population was 18,589 in the 2020 census. Durant is the principal city of the Durant Micropolitan Statistical A ...

and concluded later in the year on September 9, in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, Pennsylvania.

Singles

Still the Same Still the Same may refer to: * "Still the Same" (Bob Seger song), 1978 * "Still the Same" (Slade song), 1987 * "Still the Same" (Sugarland song), 2017 * '' Still the Same... Great Rock Classics of Our Time'', a 2006 album by Rod Stewart {{d ...

" is the lead single from the album and was released on December 21, 2017. "

" featuring

, the second single from the album, was released on April 20, 2018.

Promotional singles

The title-track, "Bigger", was released as a promotional single on April 12, 2018. "Mother" was released April 27, 2018 as another promotional single.

Critical reception

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of

All Music AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

gave it four out of five star rating saying, that the album "does indeed deliver on its titular promise to be a grand, majestic album, but emotions are not in its skyscraper sweep." Brittany McKenna of ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'' was positive saying, "The arrangements of ''Bigger'' are grander, the vocals more theatrical, and the themes – which occasionally veer into the political – decidedly more topical. The album takes cue from current trends while adamantly retaining the spirit that made their songs like "Stay" such massive hits. In other words, it's still a Sugarland record, but one tailor-made for our odd moment, where female voices like Nettles' are louder than ever thanks to movements like #MeToo and Time's Up but still largely missing from country radio." Jermey Burchard of ''Wide Open Country'' describes the album as "their best yet", and they "are coming back into the county landscape at more creative and promising timing."

Commercial performance

''Bigger'' debuted at No. 2 on Top Country Albums based on 30,000

album equivalent units The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, is a measurement unit in music industry to define the consumption of music that equals the purchase of one album copy. This consumption includes streaming and song downloads in addition to traditio ...

, 26,000 of which are traditional album sales. It sold another 5,000 copies (7,600 units) the second week. It has sold 57,500 copies in the United States as of December 2018.

Track listing

Adapted from ''

''.

Personnel

Credits adapted from

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

. Vocals and songwriting *

Kristian Bush Kristian Merrill Bush (born March 14, 1970) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Bush is one half of the country music duo Sugarland with Jennifer Nettles, and was a member of the folk rock duo Billy Pilgrim with Andrew Hyr ...

– vocals, songwriter *

Amie Miriello Amie Miriello is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist whose eclectic sound can be categorized as indy folk/rock.. She was the lead singer of the rock band Dirtie Blonde from 2005 through 2007. Miriello was also a founding member of the g ...

– background vocals *

— songwriter *

Jennifer Nettles Jennifer Odessa Nettles (born September 12, 1974) is an American singer, songwriter, actress and record producer. Nettles is the lead vocalist of the duo Sugarland alongside Kristian Bush, and prior to this she fronted the Atlanta-based band ...

– vocals, songwriter *Tim Owens — songwriter *

– background vocals, featuring vocals and songwriter Musicians *David Angel – violin *Monisa Angell – violin *Tom Bukovac – electric guitar *Brandon Bush – keyboards *Kristian Bush – acoustic guitar, electric guitar,

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

*Paul Bushnell – bass guitar *Wei Tsun Chang – violin *Janet Darnell – violin *Alicia Enstrom – violin *Victor Indrizzo – drums *Shawn Pelton – drums *Carole Rabinowitz – cello *Danny Rader – electric guitar *Justin Schipper – steel guitar *Kristin Wilkinson – violin *Karen Winkelmann – violin Production *Austin Atwood – assistant *Sandy Spika Borchetta – art direction *Sean R. Badum – assistant engineer *Brandon Bush – production coordinator, string arrangements *Kristian Bush – photography, producer, programming *Adam Chagnon –

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

*Justin Ford – art direction, graphic design *

Ted Jensen Ted Jensen (born September 19, 1954) is an American mastering engineer, known for having mastered many recordings, including the Eagles' ''Hotel California'', Green Day's '' American Idiot'' and Norah Jones' ''Come Away with Me''. Biography Ted ...

— mastering *Kevin Kane – assistant *Nick Karpen – mixing assistant *

Shervin Lainez Shervin Lainez is a music photographer who was born in Washington, DC in 1985. He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. Lainez began his career in DC photographing independent bands, and went on to photograph the likes of Regina Spektor, St. V ...

– photography *Chris Lord-Alge – mixer *Jennifer Nettles – producer *Juilan Raymond – producer *Zoe Rosen – assistant, production coordinator *Brianna Steinitz – production coordinator *Tom Tapely – engineer *Myles Turney – assistant engineer *Butch Walker – vocal producer *Jeremy Wheatly – mixer *Howard Willing – string engineer

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

{{Authority control 2018 albums Big Machine Records albums Sugarland albums Albums produced by Julian Raymond