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SUBJECT TO CHANGE is Kelsea Ballerini's fourth album, and it's safe to say that no matter how unpredictable her life was during the creation of it, she delivers on easy, fun, creative country-pop records time and time again. I was lucky enough to attend one of the first shows of the HEARTFIRST Tour in Chicago about a week after the release of SUBJECT TO CHANGE and honestly, this album was incredibly fun to celebrate and therapeutic to scream-sing with a yellow dress and glitter-clad Kelsea back in October. Kelsea is now in her late twenties and she was going through the early stages of ending her marriage while making SUBJECT TO CHANGE, so while the girlishness and charm of her first several albums is far from gone, it's definitely matured this time around.
Stand-out tracks: "IF YOU GO DOWN (I'M GOING DOWN TOO)""HEARTFIRST" "MARILYN"
My favorites: "THE LITTLE THINGS" "MUSCLE MEMORY" "I GUESS THEY CALL IT FALLIN'"
Kelsea absolutely knows how to hook a listener with an album opener, and title track "SUBJECT TO CHANGE" is no exception. It's optimistic while being incredibly honest with it's "A little unpredictable, I confess/that if one things the same/it's that I'm subject to change" and boppy pop-country beat. The country gets dialed down a little and the pop gets poppier with "THE LITTLE THINGS"-- this one sounds like butterflies, roses, and twinkle lights all wrapped up in a perfectly tied bow.
Kelsea takes a page out of Shania Twain's book with sassy "I CAN'T HELP MYSELF"-- with instrumentals lead by what can only be called a fiddle and lyrics like "'cause when the sun starts falling, the girls start calling/the wine comes off of the shelf/then the drums start to kick in and all my inhibitions/are gone by a quarter to twelve" you've got a perfectly fun track. "IF YOU GO DOWN (I'M GOING DOWN TOO)" keeps the country fun going-- this one is an ode to a ride-or-die kind of friendship, but puts a playful spin on it with lines like "hypothetically if you ever kill your husband/hand on the Bible, I'd be lyin' through my teeth" and "if you rob a bank, I'm your getaway Mercedes/God knows that's what friends are for."
"MUSCLE MEMORY" romanticizes the experience of falling back in with a romantic interest of the past ("something I can't control comes over me/my hands know just where to be/it's muscle memory") and noticing all the little differences in someone that made you fall for them the first time. And the "uh huh" hook in this one is great. "I GUESS THEY CALL IT FALLIN'" is like the prequel to what was to come with Kelsea's 2023 EP Rolling Up the
Welcome Mat, telling the story of her divorce at 29 years old. The instrumental on this track is tumultuous in the way that the emotions of the track would absolutely make you feel, and it's scathing but in a way that clearly illustrates the heartbreak behind the anger ("oh, I guess they call it fallin' 'cause you end up on the ground/you can't live forever with your head up in the clouds").
One of the few ballads on SUBJECT TO CHANGE is the incredibly romantic "UNIVERSE." If the phrase "the stars were aligned" were turned into a song, this would be it. Kelsea has always been a genius at metaphorical lyrics, and "you say I hang the stars in your eyes/but you put the universe in mine" just adds to the list of great metaphorical lines in her songs. If "UNIVERSE" was the initial spark of a relationship, "WALK IN THE PARK" is the relationship as it grows to the point of knowing all the little things about a person that make them a little less perfect, but still loveable-- and this is another one where the metaphorical lyrics really shine--"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".
Kelsea's most recent GRAMMY nomination was for lead single "HEARTFIRST." This one checks all the boxes for a perfect lead single-- it's fun, it's lighthearted, it's summer love in a perfectly crafted country-pop song. The glittery butterfly aesthetic of the album really represents this song perfectly. "YOU'RE DRUNK, GO HOME" is the only feature on this album with Kelly Clarkson and Carly Pearce joining in on the honky tonkiest of honky tonk Kelsea has ever released. This one is solely just for fun, but it man does it achieve what it set out to do-- and lines like "yeah, I know you're a Virgo, that's the third time you told me/just 'cause I am too doesn't mean that you know me" and "the way you're slurring and the way you stumble/ain't no way you're gonna get my number" are just so deliciously sassy.
The closing tracks of SUBJECT TO CHANGE are a pair of some of Kelsea's best written tracks yet-- "MARILYN", very obviously referring to Marilyn Monroe, is written as a beautiful letter wondering if the in's and out's of fame were really worth it all. This is what I feel like Taylor Swift was going for with 2012's "The Lucky One" from RED, but shockingly, I think Kelsea pulls it off better. The album closes pared back acoustics and stunning harmonies on "WHAT I HAVE." This album makes it clear that Kelsea has been through a transformative and enlightening couple years while writing it, and this song is a love song to all the things she still has that makes life a joy to wake up to every day. Closing an album with "I got the air, good eyes to see/got so much more than I'll ever need/even the bad days ain't all that bad/with what I have"? Perfect.
AM I OBSESSED?
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