After a five-year hiatus, at the 51st Annual CMA Awards, Bush and Nettles reunited to present Vocal Duo of the Year. Nettles mentioned all the years that Sugarland won Vocal Duo of the Year, "2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011…and well, who knows?", teasing new music from the duo. After the ceremony, the two tweeted a photo of themselves at the CMA's with the caption #StillTheSame. The lead single "Still the Same" was released on December 21, 2017. Sugarland announced the album, album title and track listing on April 12, 2018. One of the songs on the album, "Babe" features American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. Swift wrote the song with Train frontman Patrick Monahan for her 2012 album Red but the song didn't release in the album. After the CMA's Swift got in touch with Sugarland, told them how excited she was that they were getting back together and mentioned she had a song for them. This is the first song Sugarland have recorded that wasn't written by Bush and Nettles.
Promotion
Sugarland performed for the first time in five years at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2018, and performed "Still the Same". On May 8, 2018 they performed their second single "Babe" on Live with Kelly and Ryan becoming the debut televised performance of the song; the duo then performed the title-track "Bigger" off-camera just for the studio audience. The duo supported the album on the Still the Same Tour which began on May 4, 2018, in Durant, Oklahoma and concluded later in the year on September 9, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Singles
"Still the Same" is the lead single from the album and was released on December 21, 2017. "Babe" featuring Taylor Swift, the second single from the album, was released on April 20, 2018.
Promotional singles
The title-track, "Bigger", was released as a promotional single on April 12, 2018. "Mother" was released April 27, 2018 as another promotional single.
Critical reception
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of All Music gave it four out of five star rating saying, that the album "does indeed deliver on its titular promise to be a grand, majestic album, but emotions are not in its skyscraper sweep." Brittany McKenna of Rolling Stone was positive saying, "The arrangements of Bigger are grander, the vocals more theatrical, and the themes – which occasionally veer into the political – decidedly more topical. The album takes cue from current trends while adamantly retaining the spirit that made their songs like "Stay" such massive hits. In other words, it's still a Sugarland record, but one tailor-made for our odd moment, where female voices like Nettles' are louder than ever thanks to movements like #MeToo and Time's Up but still largely missing from country radio." Jermey Burchard of Wide Open Country describes the album as "their best yet", and they "are coming back into the county landscape at more creative and promising timing."
