A change for the better.
Kelsea Ballerini's third studio album kelsea was specifically designed to launch a huge tour, where fans of the country star would pack into concert venues and belt out all of the new, upbeat songs. However, it just so happened to be released "right before everything shut down," she explained in an exclusive conversation with E!'s Carissa Culiner on Sept. 25's Daily Pop.
"I worked really hard on kelsea the album and it was just unfortunate the week that we put it out was kind of the week the world shut down," she said, looking back at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. "I almost kind of had to go through this, like, grieving process of grieving these plans and the tour and the release that I had worked towards and planned for months."
Once some time had passed, a piece of advice from a loved one was able to change Kelsea's perspective on the matter.
As the 27-year-old singer recalled, she was told, "Don't discard it. Find a way to fall back in love with it."
"And that was what ballerini was; my way of making an album that I loved for touring, now for your living room," Kelsea explained.
Released at the beginning of the month, kelsea's companion album ballerini features reimagined versions of all 13 tracks. The differences between the two records are stark—Kelsea sees the first as someone who she wants to be, and the second as who she really is—but together, they "make a whole."
"kelsea the album is very the artist side of me. It's the bolder side. It's the glittery side," she added. "And ballerini's much more of the introspective side; the songwriter. The person behind the face that sings it, I guess."
In addition to discussing the new album, Kelsea caught Carissa up on what she and husband Morgan Evans have been up to in quarantine, telling the E! co-host, "I feel like we've done five years of marriage in five months."
"We're so used to trying to, like, cram a whole week's worth of time together in one day because we're both touring artists," she continued. "So it's been really nice to just have the time to actually exist together and just do life in a really real way."
Watch the complete Daily Pop interview with Kelsea, which includes a fun game of "Ballerini Knows Best," in the above clip!