Meet Colbie Caillat, Country Music’s Freshest Catch
Colbie Caillat (full name: Colbie Marie Ashely Caillat) has proven she’s not just a Myspace fluke, the social networking site which helped introduce her to mainstream listeners via her breezy, put-a-smile-on-your face single “Bubbly.”
“Breakthrough,” Caillat’s sophomore offering, is currently Number 1 on this week’s Billboard 220, with its carrier single “Fallin for You” reaching Number 12 on the Hot 100 charts. The album is also topping the charts as Billboard’s Number 1 Rock Album and Digital Album, Number 1s7 European Album, and Number 5 Canadian Album.
While she was recording her second album, Colbie shared her fears about releasing new music that her fans have never hear before, in stark contrast to how she and her music first came to be known. “You do have to worry a little because, especially for me, my fans started hearing all my songs from MySpace, so they knew them ahead of time. So, now it’s going to be all brand new stuff they’ve never heard before. And that’s the only thing that’s a little scary. Like any album that just comes out, you have to get used to it,” she smiled. “But, I’m more excited about it.”
In an interview with Billboard.com, the California-raised artist has said she was always hoping for the best, for her new album to receive the success her first album “Coco,” which reached Number 5 on Billboard 200. But she never actually imagined it would happen this way. “I never want to get my hopes up. Everyone kept saying, ‘I think it’s gonna be No. 1. It’s gonna be No. 1. It looks like it,’ and I just kept trying to ignore it ’cause I didn’t want it to not happen.”
“And now that it is happening, I can’t believe it. I’m so excited. I’m so thankful.”
“Breakthrough” is definitely more polished than “Coco,” with a more well-rounded sound, but it maintains the feel-good mellow tunes than Caillat has been known for with previous pleasers like “Bubbly” and “Realize.” Although “Fallin for you” is deservedly earning some airplay, there is no single song yet from the 11 other remaining tracks (there are 5 more in the deluxe edition) which seem to really grab the listener’s attention. Nonetheless, every track retains that Colbie magic we all came to love and expect. After all, “a great song,” says Caillat, “should lift your heart, warm the soul and make you feel good.”
The musician, who only learned to play the piano at 19, considers “Breakthrough” not just as an album, but a turning point in her life as a performer and a songwriter. As she prepares to start her tour in the House of Blues in Anaheim (Sept. 17), Caillat is also preparing to reveal more of herself and conquer her fear of performing. Confessing that she felt nervous during her first tour, Colbie says, “I wasn’t a performer yet. I didn’t know how to do it. I was very shy on stage…But I’ve really learned a lot. That’s actually why I named my album ‘Breakthrough;’ I broke through my fear of performing and having stage fright. So now I’m being me and laughing and dancing with my band and telling the crowd about my songs.”
