Alana Springsteen rides wave of new country female singers with 'Twenty Something'

For 22-year-old Alana Springsteen, getting her heart broken before penning her three-part debut album "Twenty Something" didn't feel like the end of the world.

Because the world's been her metaphorical oyster since she was 9 years old and singing the national anthem in her hometown of Virginia Beach, Virginia, it was more of a maturing moment that accelerated her trajectory toward country music superstardom.

When the singer-songwriter sings to the heartbreaking ex-boyfriend that "you don't deserve a country song," it's not a throwaway line. She's in line to follow a decade-old tradition of country-to-pop crossover female stars, whose best material frequently dives into treasured lessons learned from problematic exes.

Springsteen's ascent to stardom includes being gifted a guitar by her grandparents at age 7 and spending time in Music City since she was 14. Along the way, she's also wowed songwriters like Songwriter Hall Of Fame inductee Liz Rose and Trannie Anderson, plus artists such as Garth Brooks, current tour mate Luke Bryan and album collaborator Chris Stapleton.

And of course, that's the best place for the Taylor Swift comparisons to begin.

They're both East Coasters drawn to Nashville by showcasing teenage songwriting abilities and acoustic guitar work beyond their years.

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But beyond the inspiration to stay motivated as a Columbia Records NY/Sony Music Nashville-signed creator now wholly inside the Nashville machine, that's pretty much where the comparisons to Swift could end.

Springsteen, alongside fellow post-COVID-era CMT Next Women of Country class members Avery Anna, Mackenzie Carpenter, Callista Clark, Carter Faith, Megan Moroney, Georgia Webster, and MaRynn Taylor, is south of 25 years of age. Their lives are pre-dated by the last time country music had an overall pop year-end chart-topping single and included the influence of dance, hip-hop, and pop, plus Swift's mainstream pop "defection" of sorts, in the genre.

Their collective stardom heralds a new era for female singer-songwriters in Music City.

To wit, she's seated staring out the front window of Antioch's Red Rose Hype Shop, discussing the genre's past two decades of hits while perusing the female-owned urban wear boutique's rows of multicolored Nike Dunk sneakers.

Springsteen is as adept in playing in open D tuning as she is willing to talk about Air Max 90s and Air Jordans.

"My country music doesn't look or sound like your country music and that's OK," she adds.

Her album track "Chameleon" completely accepts how her ability to positively shift her mood to fit any life situation has evolved from "a vulnerable insecurity to a superpower."

Other tracks, like her Mitchell Tenpenny duet "Goodbye Looks Good on You," "When We Were Friends" and "Amen," highlight how her detailed, mature, nuanced view of relationships has evolved over four years of writing about heartbreak between her current project and 2021's "History of Breaking Up."

Springsteen's working process involves carefully churning her internalized emotions into three-minute examinations of the youthful human condition. Thus, entering her 20s while receiving the "external validation of presenting 'being in love' to the world" proved difficult.

"Looking for things in other people that you believe are missing in yourself is easy when you forget that maturing allows you to live your best life without having to live it as defined by someone else."

The best of her material moving past an era defined by a breakup converging with her growth in self-awareness is the Stapleton duet "Ghost in My Guitar."

Created from a Los Angeles writing session ("Being at the beach, near the water and outside of my creative bubble unlocks the freedom in my process") after Springsteen covered Stapleton's hit "You Should Probably Leave" at the 2022 Academy of Country Music Honors ceremony, the dark, gritty and hauntingly soulful playing on the track belongs to the 2023 ACM Entertainer of the Year.

"[Chris] is the only person who could play the guitar with such a signature, specific tone that it represents someone's soul and spirit," she says.

While watching Stapleton play at Luke Bryan's Crash My Playa event in Mexico in January, Springsteen heard the superstar laying down his trademark soulful licks.

"The guitar playing on ['Ghost in My Guitar'] makes it an unimaginably great song with a personality that redefines my career."

"Twenty Something: Messing It Up" -- the first installment of her career re-defining debut album -- was released in March, followed by the just-released "Twenty Something: Figuring It Out." The trilogy's finale is forthcoming.

She offers a fascinating opinion about how the art of songwriting is accelerating her best, self-actualized path into adulthood and a stardom-defined career.

"I'm in-between eras of bearing the weight of songs I've written and feeling freed by the songs I need to write," she says. "All I know how to do is write to let the emotions exist that make the world around me feel more comfortable. I want to live a life beyond words sitting and waiting in a leather-bound diary on my bookshelf to be felt by the world."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Alana Springsteen offers nuanced country debut with 'Twenty Something'