Chris Young Says ‘I’m Comin’ Over’ Is ‘a Game-Changer’

Chris Young's life and career changed with the release of his fifth studio album, I'm Comin' Over, in 2015. The artist himself called the project "a game-changer," but he also admits that he got lucky.

"There’s been so much going on that’s going really, really right, in the music as well as all of the stuff surrounding it -- [it] seems to be going right all at the same time," Young tells The Boot. "To some extent, I don’t know that you really do that on purpose; sometimes that just happens. You do have to prepare and have a lot of the stuff in place, but sometimes everything goes quick. Right now with this album and everything else, that’s really what feels like it’s going on."

Young co-produced I'm Comin' Over with his good friend, songwriter Corey Crowder, completing part of the album on his own dime instead of getting the label's approval ahead of time. It was a risky gamble, which in the end paid off in ways that Young could never have imagined.

"I wasn’t nervous until the night before we dropped the album. And then I was like, 'Oh crap, what if everybody hates it?' I didn't have my freak-out moment until way too late," Young shares. "I’m so happy that this is actually my first album to ever debut at No. 1, sales-wise; that was an immediate bucket list thing that we got to check off. Like I said, there’s just so much going right at the same time. It’s a lot of fun right now."

I'm Comin' Over has produced, thus far, two No. 1 singles: its title track and "Think of You," a duet with Cassadee Pope. Young hand-picked Pope to sing the song with him, and he knew that her incredible vocal chops would challenge him to sing better.

"I was doing something that was so different from the way I’d done it in the past, and we had had a lot of success," Young reflects. "But I really felt like it was time to take the next step for me as an artist, with this music and with everything that’s going on."

Young's third single from I'm Comin' Over is "Sober Saturday Night," also a duet, this time with the legendary Vince Gill. With eight No. 1 songs to his credit already, Young is finally at a place in his career where he's more concerned with the substance of the songs than chart position.

"I like that we’re putting out a song that is really different from the first two songs that we put out," Young notes. "So far, on this album, we’ve had "I’m Comin’ Over," which is obviously more of a sexy song, [and] "Think of You," which is kind of a wistful breakup song ... and then moving on to "Sober Saturday Night," which is just a straight-up sad song.

"There’s such a cool history in country music of songs that are just sad," he continues. "That’s what this is. But it’s also really powerful. I like that everything we’ve put out so far has been different and has had its own lane."

Young's I'm Comin' Over Tour will run through the end of the year; a list of all of his upcoming shows is available on his website. I'm Comin' Over is available for purchase on Amazon and iTunes.

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