Lauren Alaina
Lauren Alaina is a Southern country-pop singer with a sunny, contemporary sound. Building upon her success as the runner-up on the 2011 season of American Idol, her 2011 debut, Wildflower, hit number five on the Billboard 200. "Road Less Traveled," the title track to her 2017 sophomore LP, earned Alaina her first number one Billboard Country Airplay hit. She has remained a presence on the country Top 40, both on her own and as a duet partner. 2021's Sitting Pretty on Top of the World featured cameos by Trisha Yearwood and Jon Pardi; she also sang with Kane Brown on his 2017 hit "What Ifs," with Hardy on 2020's "One Beer," and charted with the Lainey Wilson on "Thicc as Thieves" from her 2023 EP Unlocked. She returned in 2025 with the country Top 40 hit "All My Exes" (with Chase Matthew) from 2026's Stages.
Born in 1994 in Rossville, Georgia, Alaina grew up listening to country music and first began singing around age three. Prior to American Idol, she was a cheerleader at her high school and performed regularly around Georgia, where she won the WinniSTAR youth talent contest in 2009. She competed in the finals of the tenth season of American Idol against ultimate winner Scotty McCreery -- also a young country singer -- and eventually earned the silver medal.
After wrapping Idol, Alaina released the single "Like My Mother Does," which sold over 200,000 copies during its first two months of release and helped earn her a contract with Mercury Nashville. Her full-length debut album, Wildflower, followed several months later in 2011. The record debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and reached number two on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. In 2013, she released the single "Barefoot and Buckwild" and returned to American Idol to perform the song.
In 2017, Alaina issued her sophomore full-length album, Road Less Traveled, which featured the title-track single co-written by Alaina, Meghan Trainor, and Jesse Frasure. Also included on the busbee-produced album was the single "Next Boyfriend." The set landed at number 31 on the Billboard 200 and number three on the Top Country Albums chart. Her greatest success in 2017 was as Kane Brown's duet partner on his number one Country Airplay hit "What Ifs."
In 2019, Alaina released a pair of singles -- "Ladies in the '90s" and "Getting Good" -- and in 2020, she duetted with Hardy on his number one hit "One Beer" and with Dustin Lynch on "Thinking 'Bout You." Alaina released Sitting Pretty on Top of the World in 2021, an album that featured the Jon Pardi duet "Getting Over Him." It reached number 21 on the Top Country Albums chart. After a label switch from Mercury to Big Loud, she returned in 2023 with the Unlocked EP, which yielded a Country Airplay hit in the Lainey Wilson duet "Thicc as Thieves."
The following year, she joined Corey Kent on his track "Now or Never." Another Billboard country hit, "All My Exes," featuring Chase Matthew, followed in 2025 and was included on her fourth studio album, August 2026's Stages. Her debut on the Big Loud label, it was produced by Joey Moi (Morgan Wallen, Florida Georgia Line) and Ben Johnson (Jelly Roll, Dasha) and also featured the country airplay hit "Raining Whiskey." ~ Matt Collar
