Chris Young Says His Next Album Is ‘Pretty Much Done’
With the two-year anniversary of the release of his fourth studio album, I'm Comin' Over, coming in November, Chris Young knows his fans are eagerly awaiting a new set of tunes. The singer has already released "Losing Sleep" as the debut single from an upcoming project, and although he hasn't shared a release date, title or other details for the record, Young reveals the rest of the album, which his is co-producing with Corey Crowder, is nearing completion.
"I’m actually finishing up vocals right now on the back half of the record. The record’s pretty much done," Young revealed to The Boot and other reporters at a recent media event. ""Losing Sleep" is obviously the first single. It’s kind of different; if you look at the production style, what me and Corey did in the studio, it’s a little bit different from the last project. But there’s a wide variety of sounds and songs on this record: There’s a summer thing that’s kind of a play off of an R&B groove, that’s got a lot of steel guitar and a lot of electric that play back and forth in a call-and-response thing. There’s a really big piano ballad that’s one of my favorite things that I got to sing on the record.
"I think there’s just a lot of different grooves that’s really the basis of each one of these songs, and why we picked everything that we picked for this project. But they all do marry well together," Young adds. "I don’t know if everything sounds exactly like "Losing Sleep," but we liked that it was a little bit different. That’s why we picked it as the first single."
Young admits he has a wide variety of influences, including Marty Robbins, Keith Whitley, Brad Paisley and Tracy Lawrence, along with artists from other genres. Still, whether intentionally or not, the 32-year-old doubts he'll ever have a crossover hit.
"I feel like in some of the ways that I handle vocally what I do, a lot of it is that I have a lot of other influences that were jazz, that were kind of true R&B. So a lot of that blends into some of my delivery," Young explains. "And then, a lot, we’ll take a song, especially in the writers' room, but at the end of the day, I put my voice on anything, it’s country. I don’t think anybody’s getting confused about what my voice sounds like."
The 11-track I'm Comin' Over album, also co-produced by Young and Crowder, gave the singer three No. 1 singles, including his Grammys-nominated duet with Cassadee Pope, "Think of You." Given the album's success, the Tennessee native knows the pressure is on for his new project, but he insists he is up for the challenge.
"I’m never going to complain about an album’s being successful," Young shares. "Each one of them are so different from one another. They’re really snapshots in time of where you are at the moment, as a vocalist, as a songwriter, as a producer, and, kind of, what you’re feeling, what you need to say. So I think each one of them can kind of stand on the own.
"Do you always look at how successful the last one was, and hope you can top it? Of course," Young continues. "I was just so proud of everything that happened with the whole album."
See Chris Young + More Country Stars Then and Now
How Well Do You REALLY Know Chris Young?