Sugarland is one of our long-time favorites here at New Music Weekly. We have been tracking them from the beginning of their career and have been one of the first music publications to do so. This super all American country music duo consisting of singer-songwriters Jennifer Nettles (lead vocals) and Kristian Bush (vocals, acoustic guitar, mandolin). Sugarland was founded in 2002 by Kristen Hall with Bush and became a trio after hiring Jennifer Nettles. Signed to Mercury Nashville Records in 2004, Sugarland broke through that year with the release of their debut single “Baby Girl”, the first single from their multi-platinum debut album Twice the Speed of Life. Hall left the group in late 2005 due to stress before the release of the groups second album, Enjoy the Ride. This album produced their first two No. 1 singles (in the U.S.), “Want To” and “Settlin'”, and won the duo a Grammy for “Stay”. In 2008 they released their third album, titled Love on the Inside. This album produced three more No. 1 singles with “All I Want to Do”, “Already Gone”, and “It Happens”.

Their fourth album, The Incredible Machine, was released on October 19, 2010 in both a standard and deluxe edition. Upon The Incredible Machine being certified platinum, Sugarland has sold in excess of 14 million records. Besides songs written with Kevin Griffin, Nettles and Bush write all of the band’s songs. In 2012, after recording a series of tours, the duo went on hiatus due in part to Nettles taking a maternity leave; during the hiatus, both she and Bush recorded solo projects. They officially reunited in 2017 and announced that they were working on new music together for Big Machine Records. This is our very special New Music Awards Nominations & CRS issue. We want to congratulate all of our nominees and we will forward to seeing many of them in the winner’s circle & we look forward to a great 2018 CRS event as well.