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Song Premiere: Little Big Town's 'Night On Our Side' Sees Blue Skies

Little Big Town's new album, <em>The Breaker</em>, is out Friday.
Courtesy of the artist
Little Big Town's new album, The Breaker, is out Friday.

For nearly 20 years, Little Big Town's members have plugged away through label troubles, divorces and the death of loved ones, but they've never endured a lineup change. Their persistence has paid off: Though they've enjoyed sustained chart success for more than a decade, the Nashville vets have become a full-blown juggernaut in recent years, thanks to blockbuster ballads like "Girl Crush" and the sublime new "Better Man." (Taylor Swift wrote the latter song, and it's hard to imagine why she didn't save it for herself.)

On Friday, Little Big Town returns with its seventh studio album, The Breaker. As always, it's got plenty of sounds and styles to shoehorn in — no surprise, given that members Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman, Phillip Sweet and Jimi Westbrook all sing lead at various points. But its highlights extend well beyond "Better Man."

"Night On Our Side" showcases the band's peppier side, with a rousing chorus that's likely to ring out across country radio once the weather gets warm. A harmony-rich slab of countrified pop-rock, the track returns to one of modern country music's sturdiest themes: the celebration of a night electrified with possibility. A vocal showcase for Sweet and Westbrook — who cowrote the song with Jay Joyce, Jeremy Spillman and Ryan Tyndell — "Night On Our Side" radiates sparkly optimism, with the darkness clearing the way for everything from feelings of immortality to a chance to "start a revolution." Given Little Big Town's recent success, it's easy to see why.

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Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)