Line #24 Music/LittleBigTown


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gettyimages_495684558.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Left to right: Philip Sweet, Kimberly Schlapman, Karen Fairchild, Jimi Westbrook.]]
3	A CountryMusic vocal group consisting of Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman (née Roads), Jimi Westbrook, and Philip Sweet. Their momentum was slow, with a gradual rise to prominence in TheNewTens.
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5	In the late 90s, the group signed to Creator/MercuryRecords but did not release anything. They then moved over to Monument and released one self-titled debut album, from which only two low-charting singles were released before Monument closed its Nashville division.
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7	Music/ClintBlack picked the group up in 2005 and signed them to his Equity label, where LBT scored a dark-horse Top 10 hit late in the year with "Boondocks", and another with its followup, "Bring It On Home", followed by the lesser hits "Good as Gone" and "A Little More You". The corresponding album, ''The Road to Here'', was produced by songwriter Wayne Kirkpatrick, who gave them a more raw, earthy feel than their first album. These four singles boosted their album to platinum sales, and earned them ACM and MCA nominations, as well as a touring spot with Music/{{Sugarland}} and Music/JakeOwen.
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9	2007's ''A Place to Land'' had its lead single "I'm with the Band" fizzle out at #32, followed promptly by the closure of Equity. Shortly afterward, a concert recording of them covering The Dream Academy's "Life in a Northern Town" on the Sugarland/Jake Owen tour also cracked Top 30, at which point Little Big Town announced that Creator/CapitolRecords had picked them up. Capitol re-issued ''A Place to Land'' with several new tracks, and released two more singles from the project, but they were also unsuccessful.
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11	"Little White Church" from 2010's ''The Reason Why'' got them a third Top 10 hit finally, but the follow-ups both failed to make Top 40, despite a second tour with Sugarland. Two years later, the band switched producers to Jay Joyce (Music/EricChurch, Music/CageTheElephant), and ''finally'' got its first #1 hit with "Pontoon", the lead single to ''Tornado''. This song also netted them their first-ever Grammy (for Best Country Duo/Group Performance), while the title track went on to become a #2 hit in 2013. After two lower-charting singles, Little Big Town launched its sixth album with "Day Drinking", followed by their biggest hit to date, "Girl Crush". A detour to pop territory in 2016 with the Pharrell Williams-produced ''Wanderlust'' was unsuccessful, so they returned to country in 2017 with ''The Breaker'' -- led off by the Music/TaylorSwift-penned "Better Man". Continuing in the "one step forward, two steps back" pattern, all successive singles have also fizzled out.
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13	Little Big Town's music is defined by a strong use of vocal harmony, and for the fact that [[VocalTagTeam all four members alternate as lead vocalists]] (although most of their biggest hits were sung by Fairchild).
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15	!Albums
16	* ''Little Big Town'' (2002)
17	* ''The Road to Here'' (2005)
18	* ''A Place to Land'' (2007)
19	* ''The Reason Why'' (2010)
20	* ''Tornado'' (2012)
21	* ''Pain Killer'' (2014)
22	* ''Wanderlust'' (2016)
23	* ''The Breaker'' (2017)
24	* ''Nightfall'' (2020)
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26	!Tropes present:
27	* EarlyBirdCameo: Back when they were signed to Mercury, they sang backing vocals on Music/CollinRaye's ''Can't Back Down'', and Sweet and Roads co-wrote a song for Sherrié Austin in 2001.
28	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Their first album had much slicker, poppier production than their most famous works. Also, both of its singles had Kimberly and Philip singing lead, when the Equity albums relied more on rotating the lead vocal more evenly, and the Capitol albums more on Karen.
29	* LongRunnerLineup: Same four people since 1998.
30	* LoveIsADrug: "Sober":
31	-->I love being in love\
32	It's the best kind of drug\
33	Drunk on the high\
34	Leanin' on your shoulder\
35	Sweet like wine as it gets older\
36	When I die, I don't wanna go sober\
37	Oh when I die, I don't wanna go sober
38	* MoralGuardians: "Girl Crush" supposedly caught a lot of heat in 2015 due to listeners misconstruing it as promoting lesbianism, but most of it was discovered to be manufactured by the label to generate interest in the song.
39	* NewSoundAlbum: They released a pop album, ''Wanderlust'', in 2016. It was produced by Music/JustinTimberlake and Pharrell Williams.
40	* OdeToIntoxication: "Wine, Beer, Whiskey"
41	* RecordProducer: Songwriter Wayne Kirkpatrick, who is not often a producer, handled their second through fourth albums and helped them define their sound. Jay Joyce carried on in a similar fashion between ''Tornado'' and ''The Breaker'' except for ''Wanderlust'', which was co-produced by Music/PharrellWilliams and Music/JustinTimberlake. For ''Nightfall'', the band largely produced by themselves.
42	* SoloSideProject: Karen sang duet vocals on Music/LukeBryan's late-2015 release "Home Alone Tonight".
43	* VocalTagTeam: Karen usually gets the singles, but the other three members have carried at least one single each:
44	** Everyone in varying combinations: "Boondocks", "I'm with the Band", "Good Lord Willing", "Life in a Northern Town" (which also had Music/JakeOwen and both members of Music/{{Sugarland}} sharing the lead)
45	** Kimberly: "Sober"
46	** Kimberly/Philip: "Don't Waste My Time", "Everything Changes"
47	** Jimi: "A Little More You", "When Someone Stops Loving You", "Wine, Beer, Whiskey"
48	** Karen/Jimi: "The Reason Why", "Your Side of the Bed"
49	** Philip: "Bring It On Home", "Kiss Goodbye"
50	* WomanScorned: The subject of "Tornado", in which the female compares herself to a tornado.

Context Music / LittleBigTown