''Wildfire'' is the third studio album and the first major record label debut album by American singer and songwriter

Rachel Platten Rachel Ashley Platten (born May 20, 1981) is an American singer-songwriter and author. After releasing two albums independently in 2003 and 2011, she signed with Columbia Records in 2015 and released her mainstream debut single, "Fight Song", w ...

. It was released on January 1, 2016, by

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

and

Sony Music Entertainment Sony Music Entertainment (SME), also known as simply Sony Music, is an American multinational music company. Being owned by the parent conglomerate Sony Group Corporation, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is owned by Sony Entertainment ...

. The album was a commercial success. It debuted at number five on the US ''Billboard'' 200, with 45,000

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 traditi ...

(29,000 from pure album sales) in its first week. On March 9, 2016, the album was certified

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

by the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

(RIAA) for combined sales and streaming equivalent units of 500,000 units. The album includes "

Fight Song A fight song is a rousing short song associated with a sports team. The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In Australia, Mexico, and New Zealand these songs are called the team anthem, team song, or games song. First associated ...

", released in February 2015, which peaked at number six on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, and topped the charts in Scotland and the United Kingdom. The album's second single, " Stand by You", was released on September 11, 2015. The album's third single, "Better Place", was released on March 24, 2016. The album was promoted by Platten's first Headline tour "The Wildfire tour".

Promotion

Singles

On February 19, 2015, "

" was released as the

lead single A lead single (also known as a debut single) is the first single to be released from a studio album by an artist or a band, usually before the album itself is released and also occasionally on the same day of the album's release date. Release s ...

from Platten's ''Fight Song'' EP. "Fight Song" peaked at number six on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and topped the UK Singles Chart. " Stand by You" was released as the lead single from ''Wildfire'' on September 11, 2015. It has since peaked at number thirty seven on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The songs "Lone Ranger", "Beating Me Up", and "Congratulations" were available as pre-order singles (previously released as part of the '' Fight Song EP''), as well as "Better Place". On March 24, 2016, " Better Place" was released as the third single from the album.

Tour

To promote the album, Platten embarked on her first headlining concert tour, entitled ''The Wildfire Tour''. The tour began on February 26, 2016, in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

and ended in November 2016 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

Critical reception

''Wildfire'' received mixed reviews from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 52 out of 100, which indicates "mixed or average reviews" based on four reviews.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occ ...

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 ...

rated the album three out of five stars and states: "Platten specializes in skyscraping melodies and big, bombastic surfaces and these are the elements that not only fuel ''Wildfire'', they distinguish it from the singer/songwriter's clear antecedents." At Digital Journal, Markos Papadatos rated the album an "A", affirming that "Rachel Platten has set the bar high already with her brand new album, ''Wildfire''. There are no filler tracks on this release. It garners an A rating." Tony Clayton-Lea of ''

The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...

'' rated the album three stars out of five and states the songs are "Pop songs built to withstand a wrecking ball." In a positive review for ''

The Red and Black ''The Red & Black'' is an independent weekly student newspaper serving the University of Georgia (UGA), updated daily on its website. History Students published its first issue in tabloid format on November 24, 1893, from offices in the Acade ...

'', Emma Korstanje writes the album "is made memorable by her juxtaposition of sassy, confident songs with others featuring raw emotion."

Track listing

Personnel

Musicians *

– vocals (all tracks), piano (5, 7), acoustic guitar (7) *

Jon Levine The Philosopher Kings are a Canadian band. The band was most commercially successful in the late 1990s and have been nominated for five Juno Awards, winning one in 1996 for "Best New Group". Most of the band members, current and former, have also ...

– bass, keyboards (1–6, 8, 10–12); drum programming (1), piano (1, 3, 4, 6, 8–12), guitar (2, 5, 11), organ (2, 7, 9), programming (2–5, 8, 10–12), strings (4) *

Aaron Sterling Aaron Sterling (born July 9, 1980) is an American drummer, producer, engineer, and session musician who lives in Los Angeles. The son of professional musicians, Sterling grew up in Texas and Nashville, Tennessee, before moving to L.A. in 2000. K ...

– drums (1, 3, 4, 8, 10) * Jon Sosin – guitar (1, 3, 4, 6, 11), ukulele (4) * Donald Hayes –

alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B tenor ...

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while th ...

(2) * Jacob Sceney –

baritone saxophone The baritone saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass. It is the lowest-pitched saxophone in common use - the bass, contra ...

(2) * Lemar Guillary – trombone (2) * Cameron Johnson – trumpet (2) *

Andy Grammer Andrew Charles Grammer (born December 3, 1983) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is signed to S-Curve Records. His debut album, ''Andy Grammer'', was released in 2011 and spawned the singles " Keep Your Head Up" and " Fi ...

– vocals (2) *

Evan Kidd Bogart Evan Bogart (born January 23, 1978), better known as E. Kidd Bogart, is an American songwriter, music publisher, record executive and film & television producer. He is the son of Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart and former music manager Joyc ...

– vocals (2) * Simon Huber – cello (3, 6, 11) * Andrew Wells – guitar (3) * Sonia Rao – violin (3) * The International Agape Choir – background vocals (7) *

Marc Rogers Marc Rogers is a Canadian acoustic and electric bassist. Career Rogers studied at the University of North Texas College of Music, where he was a member of the One O'Clock Lab Band directed by Neil Slater. He is a member of the band The Philosop ...

– bass (7) * Dash Hutton – drums (7, 9) * Brian West – programming (7, 9), synthesizer (7); guitar, vocals (9) * Aubrey Cleland – background vocals (9) * Donnie Anderson – background vocals (9) *

Nash Overstreet Hot Chelle Rae ( ) (formerly known as Miracle Drug) is an American pop rock band formed in Nashville, Tennessee in 2005. The band currently consists of Ryan Follesé (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Nash Overstreet (lead guitar, backing vocals), a ...

– background vocals, electric guitar, percussion (9) * Maxwell Roach – drums (12) Technical *

Tom Coyne Tom Coyne may refer to: * Tom Coyne (writer), American writer and professor * Tom Coyne (broadcaster) (1930–2015), British television presenter * Tom Coyne (music engineer) (1954–2017), American mastering engineer * Thomas Coyne (cricketer) ( ...

– mastering * Eric Boulanger – mastering (7, 11) * Joe Zook – mixing (1–6, 8–12) * Nick Radovanovic – mixing (7) * Dan Piscina –

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

* Brian West – engineering (7, 9) * Scott Elgin – engineering (7, 9) * Jeremy Miller – engineering assistance (2)

Promotion

Singles

Tour

Critical reception

Track listing

Personnel

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Release history

References