Little Big Town - "Girl Crush"

[avalyn]

During CMA Week Radio interviews Little Big Town announced to Bobby Bones that Girl Crush will be the next single. Bobby also mentioned their manager texted him to inform him it was a single after he played it release week several times. Source

[zjames]

Interesting choice. I would have gone with "Quit Breaking Up With Me", but I can see this catching on. It will certainly be fun to watch how this does.

[onebuffalo]

Tell me Capitol is still promoting Day Drinking.

[avalyn]

zjames Oddly I don't think it was planned for Girl Crush to be a single. Bobby started playing it and it blew up and had a lot of buzz so they chose it. What made me think that was Bobby mentioned he talked to them before their I Heart Radio concert about how much he loved Girl Crush but wasn't sure it would be able to be a single since it's slow. Then he played it the next few days and it blew up on iTunes.

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onebuffalo Day Drinking is still be promoted from the sound of that interview. But this is the next single once it's all done.

[onebuffalo]

Nov 3, 2014 17:04:40 GMT -5 avalyn said:

zjames Oddly I don't think it was planned for Girl Crush to be a single. Bobby started playing it and it blew up and had a lot of buzz so they chose it. What made me think that was Bobby mentioned he talked to them before their I Heart Radio concert about how much he loved Girl Crush but wasn't sure it would be able to be a single since it's slow. Then he played it the next few days and it blew up on iTunes.

----

onebuffalo Day Drinking is still be promoted from the sound of that interview. But this is the next single once it's all done.

Good. I want it to be their second #1. Their last two singles fared poorly.

[zjames]

Nov 3, 2014 17:04:40 GMT -5 avalyn said:

zjames Oddly I don't think it was planned for Girl Crush to be a single. Bobby started playing it and it blew up and had a lot of buzz so they chose it. What made me think that was Bobby mentioned he talked to them before their I Heart Radio concert about how much he loved Girl Crush but wasn't sure it would be able to be a single since it's slow. Then he played it the next few days and it blew up on iTunes.

Thanks for the information! I figured that's what happened. This had a lot of buzz when the album was released and is still the top selling album track.

[.indulgecountry]

I hope this works out for them, but I am very skeptical about this release. They've thrown their momentum out the window two eras in a row with slower, riskier radio releases ("Kiss Goodbye," "Your Side of the Bed") and I don't want to see that happen yet again. This song wasn't one of my favorites on the album initially and while it has grown on me a fair bit since, I'm not too excited about this being next, but a lot of people have seemed to take interest in it so I've got my fingers crossed that continues. It'd be such a shame if this flopped and sank the Pain Killer album.

I'm looking forward to "Day Drinking" becoming their second chart-topper though at least. I still think "Quit Breaking up with Me" is a smash, too, so here's hoping that'll be third.

[zjames]

Nov 3, 2014 17:14:21 GMT -5 .indulgecountry said:

I hope this works out for them, but I am very skeptical about this release. They've thrown their momentum out the window two eras in a row with slower, riskier radio releases ("Kiss Goodbye," "Your Side of the Bed") and I don't want to see that happen yet again. This song wasn't one of my favorites on the album initially and while it has grown on me a fair bit since, I'm not too excited about this being next, but a lot of people have seemed to take interest in it so I've got my fingers crossed that continues. It'd be such a shame if this flopped and sank the Pain Killer album.

I'm looking forward to "Day Drinking" becoming their second chart-topper though at least. I still think "Quit Breaking up with Me" is a smash, too, so here's hoping that'll be third.

This wasn't one of the standouts on the album for me either. I'm not sure how radio will receive this song. I'm not too confident in this becoming a top 10 hit. I can easily see this stalling in the upper 20s and killing any chance at a future hit off Pain Killer, but I hope I'm wrong. I just think "Quit Breaking Up With Me" or "Pain Killer" were safer, smarter choices for them right now.

[LBTrocks]

Ugh, figured this was going to happen. Many fans and LBT themselves seem to really love this and think it's such a standout song, and I'm honestly not sure why...? I personally have a love/hate relationship with it. I think the lyrics and instrumentation really hurt this song, but melodically and vocally it is quite beautiful. Karen's vocals and the harmonies are excellent, as usual, and I love the arrangement. Lyrically though, I think it's really awkward. And the music is so paper thin. It's definitely my least favorite on the album and honestly I always thought it was just a filler track. I never expected them to go with it as a single until I heard them talk about it and saw that fans were falling in love with it. I REALLY want this to do well for them, but I'm very worried. I think this should have just remained an album track. LBT can't afford to lose ANY of their momentum at this point. I really hope we're all proven wrong about this when all is said and done.

[dm2081]

Interesting choice. I'm surprised they're going to release something so slow as the second single, but maybe if this struggles early on they can pull it and release Pain Killer immediately. I think it's a beautiful song and I hope it can do well at radio so we can continue to get more ballads and slower songs, but I'm skeptical as well. It'll be interesting to watch the chart runs for this song, "Say You Do", and "What We Ain't Got", as they're all slower ballad type songs from established artists who aren't quite A list stars yet. This is a ballsy move though, that's for sure.

[rsmatto]

This is a brilliant choice. It's DIFFERENT from anything else on the radio. I hope it will do really well for them. I love a great TORCH ballad, which this is.

[Markus Meyer]

Don't love it but it's definitely not bad. Honestly don't see this being a hit though.

[clairelarter]

I love this song, but I thought they were going with Quit Breaking up with Me, which is a much wiser choice for me.

[zaclord 🌈]

Like I mentioned in the singles thread, this is a risky choice. As .indulgecountry stated, their last two eras started off great (Little White Church went top 5, then Pontoon and Tornado went #1/#2), and then they released a phenomenal, heart-wrenching ballad that completely destroyed the rest of the era for them because radio wouldn't play it. "Kiss Goodbye" and "Your Side of the Bed" are A++ material and neither of them could follow the success of the previous singles. "Girl Crush" doesn't come close to comparing to KG or YSOTB in terms of quality, in my opinion. So I feel like this is not a good choice at all for radio. Here's to hoping I'm wrong and LBT can get a hit from one of their unconventional ballads, but I'm not optimistic about it.

However, "Quit Breaking Up With Me" is a jam and could even save the era if GC underperforms, so maybe it is a good time for a risk.

[Deleted]

So uh is this the song they'll be performing with Ariana Grande at the CMAs?

[43dudleyvillas]

Speculation: This is something that Little Big Town & their management wanted, to gain separation and to gain buzz. The response on iTunes after Bobby Bones played the song and talked it up was enough to get Capitol Nashville on board.

This is one of my favorites on Pain Killer, because I really like the way the song re-purposes such a commonly and casually used colloquial phrase into something so desperate, intense and kind of creepy. The second verse does lapse in interest and energy in comparison to the first, but still, I find the whole song quite memorable and effective.

That said, I'm with many here on the wisdom of making this the second single. Country radio has shown a depressing intolerance for ballads, no matter how well-written, from Little Big Town over the past few years, and now that Pain Killer has started off with relatively weak early sales, I would have liked for Little Big Town to establish a bit more commercial momentum before taking a risk like this. "Quit Breakin' Up with Me" strikes me as having a bit of the quirk that made "Pontoon" stand out, and a surer bet as a single. I also worry a bit when I think an artist is driving a single choice as I believe to be the case here -- not because I don't fully support risk-taking or because I think labels always knows best, but because I worry about label commitment to backing a choice that was pushed by artist/management over the long run.

But on the other hand, I'm a believer in the potential significance of album track sales, and "Girl Crush" was far away the best-selling album track from Pain Killer, getting as high as the top-10 among country songs at iTunes. I'll just hope the label was sold on more than just the initial sales reaction from Bobby Bones play, and that this is a song that takes off and contends for Song & Single of the Year awards in 2015.

[zaclord 🌈]

Nov 3, 2014 21:36:49 GMT -5 zack97 said:

So uh is this the song they'll be performing with Ariana Grande at the CMAs?

Who knows what the hell that's going to be.

[LBTrocks]

Nov 3, 2014 23:03:33 GMT -5 zaclord 🌈 said:

Nov 3, 2014 21:36:49 GMT -5 zack97 said:

So uh is this the song they'll be performing with Ariana Grande at the CMAs?

Who knows what the hell that's going to be.

...wait that's actually a thing? I thought it was some kind of joke I didn't understand, ha. I haven't read anything about the CMA's this year. I can't think of any reason why LBT and Ariana would perform together, but I guess we'll find out.

A little off-topic, but I just read that Meghan Trainor is going to be performing with Miranda Lambert. What on Earth is happening??

[matty005]

Nov 3, 2014 23:38:43 GMT -5 LBTrocks said:

Nov 3, 2014 23:03:33 GMT -5 zaclord 🌈 said:

Who knows what the hell that's going to be.

...wait that's actually a thing? I thought it was some kind of joke I didn't understand, ha. I haven't read anything about the CMA's this year. I can't think of any reason why LBT and Ariana would perform together, but I guess we'll find out.

A little off-topic, but I just read that Meghan Trainor is going to be performing with Miranda Lambert. What on Earth is happening??

Meghan Trainor has written for Rascal Flatts and lived in (maybe still does?) Nashville, so this one isn't as far fetched.

[avalyn]

Nov 3, 2014 23:03:33 GMT -5 zaclord 🌈 said:

Nov 3, 2014 21:36:49 GMT -5 zack97 said:

So uh is this the song they'll be performing with Ariana Grande at the CMAs?

Who knows what the hell that's going to be.

They are doing Day Drinking with Ariana. They stated awhile back when they were first announced as performers that they'd be doing it. Then all of a sudden when the Ariana announcement happened they stopped admitting that. This was the original source for it all - www.aftermidnite.com/onair/cmt-cody-alan-54719/exclusive-little-big-town-to-perform-day-drinking-20-on-cmas-12825144/

The fantastic foursome tell Cody exclusively they will perform their current smash on this year’s CMA Awards – and fans should expect “Day Drinking 2.0.”
“We’re performing and we have been already working on the performance,” Karen Fairchild says. “We had a great time at the CMT Awards dumping paint on ourselves, and the fans really liked it … We’ve had fittings for the performance [at the CMAs]. I think we can say that we’re doing ‘Day Drinking.’”

[SoMuchToSay]

Once I get passed the fact that this sounds so similar to I Won't Let Go by Rascal Flatts, I really like this. It's probably my favorite song that they've ever done. Plus it's completely different than anything else on country radio!

[Deleted]

"Girl Crush" will go for adds on December 15, according to tonight's Country Aircheck Weekly.

[sabre14]

Dec 1, 2014 22:13:32 GMT -5 jhomes87 said:

"Girl Crush" will go for adds on December 15, according to tonight's Country Aircheck Weekly.

Wow, I thought for sure we'd see a January 5th or 12th add date. Not much competition is a good reason but I personally would have waited til the new year on this one.

[someguy]

Yeah the December 15th adds date could easily get lost in the shuffle. I'm sure it won't matter all that much in the long run, but I'm a little surprised.

[jenglisbe]

I don't expect this to get a ton of airplay, but I'm hoping it can be like "Follow Your Arrow" in how that was pretty successful despite not having a ton of airplay. There are ways to get exposure these days other than radio.

[LBTrocks]

I've actually already heard it on the radio- one of my local stations played it. It sounds better if you don't pay attention to the lyrics, at least it does to me. The melody is nice and Karen sounds great on it. Still, it's my least favorite on the record and I would have never wanted it to be released. I'm hoping it does well for them simply because they can't afford a single tanking. It could negatively impact the rest of the era, so there is a lot riding on how this performs.

[avalyn]

From the Glamour Magazine Facebook Chat:

Fan: What made y'all decide to release Girl Crush as the next single? (Seriously one of my favs on the album!)
Little Big Town: Feels like the right time for a provocative song from a woman. Especially a ballad about jealousy and rejection. -KF

Fan: When we will we see the Girl Crush video?
Little Big Town: Stay tuned! We are so excited to share it with y'all.

[Deleted]

"Girl Crush" is already selling fairly well--it's at #64 on iTunes country, which puts it ahead of all of the songs not in the top 30 at radio with the exception of Tyler Farr's "A Guy Walks Into A Bar" (#28 on iTunes), Eric Paslay's "She Don't Love You" (#47), Sam Hunt's "Take Your Time" (#7), and Canaan Smith's "Love You Like That" (#39).

Not necessarily sure that the early sales success will translate into a steady rise up the charts, but it definitely won't hurt.

[Deleted]

I'm definitely expecting some backlash against the "suggestive" lyrics. (I've already heard complaints from people I know and read a couple online.) It's totally ridiculous considering everyone knows a "girl crush" means more of an admiration or non-sexual attraction one girl has for another and that's clearly what this song is talking about, but then again the people who would be offended by these lyrics are likely the kind who also thought "Beer with Jesus" was blasphemous so we can't really expect much fair interpretation of the meaning.

[matty005]

Dec 14, 2014 11:50:57 GMT -5 @daydrinker said:

I'm definitely expecting some backlash against the "suggestive" lyrics. (I've already heard complaints from people I know and read a couple online.) It's totally ridiculous considering everyone knows a "girl crush" means more of an admiration or non-sexual attraction one girl has for another and that's clearly what this song is talking about, but then again the people who would be offended by these lyrics are likely the kind who also thought "Beer with Jesus" was blasphemous so we can't really expect much fair interpretation of the meaning.

I don't agree. This is not what the song is talking about. She doesn't have a girl crush on the girl like I have a man crush on Tom Brady (non sexual). She has a crush because the guy she is actually into, likes all these features of this other woman. Or she wishes she could taste her lips because they will taste like the guy she likes.