The 2010s File Feature
Try
Try: Recording, Release, and Chart History "Try" is a pop single by Colbie Caillat, the California-born singer-songwriter whose melodic pop sensibility and a…
01 The Story
Try: Recording, Release, and Chart History
"Try" is a pop single by Colbie Caillat, the California-born singer-songwriter whose melodic pop sensibility and acoustic-influenced sound had established her as one of the more distinctive voices in adult contemporary music since her 2007 debut. The song was released on July 22, 2014, as a single from her fifth studio album, Gypsy Heart. It was written by Caillat in collaboration with Jason Reeves, her longtime songwriting partner whose creative collaboration with her stretched back to her earliest recordings. The song was produced by Toby Gad, a Danish-American producer and songwriter who had previously worked with Beyonce, Alicia Keys, and John Legend, among many other prominent pop artists.
The creation of "Try" was prompted by a specific creative and personal impulse on Caillat's part: a desire to write a song that directly addressed the social and commercial pressure placed on women, and specifically on women in the entertainment industry, to conform to external standards of physical appearance. Caillat has spoken extensively in interviews about the personal experience that motivated the song, describing the uncomfortable feeling of being asked repeatedly by industry professionals and image consultants to alter her natural appearance through makeup, styling, and retouching. The song emerged from that discomfort as a direct artistic response.
The music video for "Try" became as significant as the song itself in terms of cultural impact. Directed in a way that showed Caillat and other women in various stages of removing makeup and styling, the video presented a visual argument that mirrored the song's lyrical content. The video began with heavily styled and made-up presentations of the subjects and progressively revealed their natural appearances, concluding with each person shown without artifice. This visual concept was widely discussed and shared on social media platforms immediately upon its release, generating millions of views and extensive media coverage in the days following its debut.
The single debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 26, 2014, entering at number 69. It climbed quickly in its second week to its peak position of number 55, reached during the chart week of August 2, 2014. The song maintained a presence on the Hot 100 for a total of 20 weeks, benefiting from sustained airplay on adult contemporary and adult pop radio formats where Caillat had a strong existing commercial relationship. The track also received significant airplay on country radio, reflecting Caillat's demographic crossover appeal.
On the Adult Contemporary chart specifically, "Try" performed considerably better than its Hot 100 peak would suggest, spending extended time in the top ten and confirming the song's particular resonance with the adult radio audience. Adult contemporary programmers responded enthusiastically to the song's positive message and accessible melodic construction, and the format provided the sustained airplay that kept the single viable across its extended 20-week Hot 100 tenure.
Colbie Caillat received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Solo Performance for "Try" at the 57th Grammy Awards in 2015, recognizing the song as one of the more critically distinguished pop recordings of the year. The nomination confirmed that the music industry recognized the song's artistic merit as well as its commercial performance, and it elevated the song's profile among listeners who tracked Grammy recognition as a guide to significant popular music.
Gypsy Heart was released in October 2014 and debuted at number 17 on the Billboard 200. The album's commercial performance was solid if not spectacular, but "Try" proved to be its most significant artistic and cultural statement, overshadowing the album's other material in terms of public attention and critical recognition. The song's viral video success meant that many listeners who encountered the song through social media discovered the album as a secondary result, contributing to its commercial performance beyond what traditional radio promotion alone would have achieved.
By 2026, the official YouTube video had accumulated more than 124 million views, a reflection of the song's enduring message and the continuing relevance of its central theme to successive audiences. The video's direct treatment of beauty standards continued to be shared and discussed in subsequent years as a culturally meaningful artifact, maintaining its relevance beyond the specific commercial context of its 2014 release.
02 Song Meaning
Try: Themes, Meaning, and Cultural Reception
"Try" is one of the most direct and culturally consequential statements about beauty standards and self-acceptance in early-2010s popular music. The song addresses a question to its listener, asking whether external validation from an undefined "them" is worth the cost of abandoning authenticity and natural self-presentation. The lyrical argument is structured as a series of challenges to the listener's sense of self-worth, questioning whether they have considered whether the standards they feel compelled to meet are actually their own or imposed from outside.
The central message of the song is that genuine self-acceptance requires confronting the difference between who one actually is and the constructed presentation demanded by social and commercial expectations. Caillat wrote the song from direct personal experience, having been made to feel inadequate by industry professionals whose standards for female presentation in the entertainment industry she found oppressive and damaging. The song's emotional authenticity derives from this specificity, even as the lyric is general enough to address any listener navigating similar pressures in any context.
The music video transformed the song from a commercially successful pop single into a cultural document. Its directness in showing women removing rather than applying makeup inverted the conventional logic of music video presentation, which typically shows artists in their most stylized and aspirational form. The decision to present natural appearances without retouching or filtering represented a deliberate statement that aligned completely with the song's lyrical content, creating a unified artistic message across both audio and visual channels. The video was widely shared on social media and discussed in publications covering both music and broader cultural topics.
Reception from critics was strongly positive, with reviewers praising the song's emotional directness and the coherence between its lyrical message and its production aesthetic. Caillat's vocal performance was noted for its warmth and sincerity, qualities that made the song's message feel like a genuine communication rather than a calculated artistic statement. The Grammy nomination for Best Pop Solo Performance reflected critical consensus that the song represented a genuine artistic achievement rather than merely a commercially successful sentiment.
Culturally, "Try" arrived at a moment when conversations about body image, beauty standards, and media representation of women were becoming increasingly prominent in mainstream cultural discourse. The song contributed to those conversations in a way that felt accessible rather than polemical, addressing its themes through the language of personal feeling and invitation rather than argument or accusation. This approach made the song's message available to listeners who might have been less receptive to more overtly political framing of the same themes.
The song's sustained cultural relevance beyond its commercial chart run reflects the enduring nature of the experiences it addresses. Beauty standards and the pressure to conform to external expectations of appearance have not diminished since 2014, and Caillat's song continues to find new audiences who recognize themselves in its description of the gap between external presentation and internal reality. The 124 million YouTube views accumulated by 2026 confirm that the song remains a living cultural artifact rather than a historical curiosity, still generating the kind of recognition and emotional response that motivated its creation.
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