Little Big Town

Little Big Town managed to make it to the top of the country crop while constantly pushing at its boundaries, allowing their own style to evolve all the while. They formed in Nashville, TN in 1998, when Alabama friends Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Roads moved to the country music hub and partnered with Phillip Sweet and Jimi Westbrook. They developed their signature vocal style early on, based around rich, four-part harmonies, with all the members taking turns at the lead. Though they would explore a multitude of sounds over the years, a '70s AM pop vibe a la The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac would remain a key ingredient of the group's sonic recipe. The quartet's path to success was a rocky one-their first record deal, signed with Mercury Nashville in 1999, proved abortive, and it wasn't until 2002 that they finally released their self-titled debut album on Monument. The record didn't make much commercial headway, and it wasn't until 2005 that the follow-up, The Road to Here, was released on indie label Equity Music Group. That album, which introduced a bluegrass tinge to the group's mix of pop, country, and rock, broke through in a big way, earning Little Big Town two Top 10 country singles ("Boondocks" and "Bring It On Home"). From there on, the foursome's appeal only increased. Their fourth album, 2010's The Reason Why, went all the way to No. 1 on the country charts. 2012's Tornado, another No. 1 record, introduced a punchier sound that was simultaneously more stripped down and more pop-savvy, producing the Grammy-winning smash "Pontoon." For the follow-up, 2014's Pain Killer, the group continued to challenge itself, introduced a more eclectic approach. The chance they took on the lesbian overtones of the soul-tinged single "Girl Crush" paid off handsomely, going to No. 1 and earning the group another Grammy. Little Big Town took their biggest leap yet on 2016's Wanderlust, enlisting Pharrell Williams as co-writer and executive producer for their production team and making a decidedly non-country record, pushing more in the direction of dance-pop and modern R&B.