When putting together the 12 songs for her Wildflower album, American Idol runner-up Lauren Alaina says she tried to think like a fan.
"I'm kinda new to the whole artist thing; a fan is basically what I am," the 16-year-old singer told me this week. "So when I was listening to my songs, I tried to think if my favorite artists, like Carrie Underwood or Miranda Lambert, were singing some of these songs, which ones would I want to hear? That's how I picked my songs."
The track listing for Wildflower has been announced, and it includes a song by former Idol winner Carrie Underwood; two from Hillary Lindsey, who has co-written several of Carrie's hits; and one, Funny Thing About Love, that Lauren wrote with Luke Laird and Brett James. The album comes out Oct. 11, one week after Idol winner Scotty McCreery's Clear as Day.
Lauren hopes that almost everyone can find one or two songs on Wildflower that they enjoy. Naturally, she wants people to like the whole album."I wanted to make sure I picked songs that people want to hear," she says. "I don't want to work on an album that someone doesn't enjoy. Like, if someone likes slow songs, there are some on there they can enjoy. If someone likes uptempo, there's stuff they can enjoy."
Lauren believes each song reveals some of her personality and a little of her life story. "They have different feels a little bit, but they're all me," she says. "If the story in the songs didn't happen to me personally, they remind me of something that has happened to someone I know or someone in my family."For example, the Carrie Underwood song Eighteen Inches reminds her of a good friend. "She got married when she was 17, and she had a baby. And they moved here, to Nashville. Her husband's is going to college and has a full-time job, and she stays at home with the baby, and she doesn't know anyone here. She moved here to support him. That's, like, the story of that song."