The 2010s File Feature
What Ifs
What Ifs: Creation, Recording, and Chart History "What Ifs" is a country pop duet by Kane Brown featuring Lauren Alaina, released in 2017. The song became Ka…
01 The Story
What Ifs: Creation, Recording, and Chart History
"What Ifs" is a country pop duet by Kane Brown featuring Lauren Alaina, released in 2017. The song became Kane Brown's breakthrough mainstream hit and established him as a significant new voice in contemporary country music, reaching a peak of number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 and performing even more strongly on country-specific charts where it spent extended periods near the top.
Kane Brown was born Kane Allen Brown in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1994. His background was distinctive within country music: he was raised in poverty across multiple states, identified as biracial with Cherokee, African American, and white heritage, and had initially gained attention through social media rather than the traditional Nashville industry pathways. His YouTube covers and Facebook videos attracted millions of followers before he had secured a major label deal, demonstrating the degree to which digital platforms had restructured access to country music audiences by the mid-2010s.
Lauren Alaina, born Lauren Alaina Kristine Suddeth in Rossville, Georgia, had first come to national attention as a finalist on the tenth season of American Idol in 2011. She had subsequently developed a recording career in Nashville and was known for her powerful, emotionally expressive vocal style. Her pairing with Brown for "What Ifs" brought together two artists with significant fanbases in the younger country music demographic, and the combination proved commercially potent.
The song was written by Matthew McGinn, Brad Tursi, and Jordan Schmidt. Its production, helmed by Dann Huff, blends traditional country instrumentation with contemporary production textures in a way that was characteristic of the country pop mainstream during the mid-2010s. The track features acoustic and electric guitar, subtle atmospheric elements, and a production sheen that made it competitive on both country radio and mainstream pop formats. The interplay between Brown's warm baritone and Alaina's emotive soprano was widely praised as one of the track's defining strengths.
"What Ifs" was released as the second single from Kane Brown's eponymous debut album, which had been released through RCA Nashville in December 2016. The song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 1, 2017 at position 93, entering the chart on the strength of digital downloads and streaming activity. Its ascent was gradual but consistent: by mid-July it had reached 81, by late July 79, and it continued climbing through the summer and autumn as country radio support built.
The song reached its Hot 100 peak of number 26 during the week of November 4, 2017, having spent nearly five months building to that position. This slow-burn trajectory was typical of country singles, which often depended on radio airplay cycles that moved more deliberately than the streaming-driven ascent of pop and hip-hop records. On the Hot Country Songs chart, "What Ifs" performed even more substantially, spending weeks in the top ten and eventually reaching the upper tier of the chart.
The song spent 23 weeks on the Hot 100, a run that reflected its broad appeal across country and mainstream pop formats. Internationally, it performed well in markets with significant country music audiences, including Canada and Australia, where the genre had established dedicated listener communities. The music video, which presented a straightforward visual narrative of romantic connection and contemplation, accumulated over 349 million views on YouTube.
The song's success was significant for Kane Brown personally as it validated the unconventional path he had taken into the country music industry. Rather than following the Nashville industry's standard development process, he had built his audience independently through social media and used that existing fanbase as leverage to secure a major label deal. "What Ifs" proved that this digitally native approach to country music could produce mainstream commercial results and helped establish a model that other artists would follow in subsequent years. The song earned multiple country music award nominations and remains a landmark of Brown's early career.
02 Song Meaning
What Ifs: Themes and Meaning
"What Ifs" is a song built around romantic uncertainty and the vulnerability of hope. Its central theme is the question that arises when a new relationship begins to feel significant: what if things go wrong? What if feelings fade? What if the investment of emotional trust leads to loss rather than fulfillment? The song does not resolve these questions with easy reassurance but rather explores the experience of sitting with uncertainty while choosing to move forward anyway, a choice that requires courage and a willingness to accept the possibility of pain.
The song's structure presents two voices wrestling with these questions in dialogue, with the narrator acknowledging the fear of loss and vulnerability while simultaneously arguing for the value of taking the risk. The message is not that everything will work out but that the possibility of love is worth the risk of heartbreak, a fundamentally hopeful but honest position that refuses both naive optimism and protective cynicism. This emotional honesty gives the song a depth that straightforward love songs often lack.
The duet format is essential to the song's meaning. The conversation between Brown's and Alaina's voices enacts the very dynamic the lyrics describe: two people in a tentative new relationship, each admitting uncertainty and fear, each trying to convince the other and themselves that the risk is worth taking. The dual vocal perspective transforms what could have been a single narrator's monologue into a genuine dialogue about the shared human experience of falling in love while being afraid of what love might cost.
Country music has a long tradition of songs that treat romantic vulnerability with directness and honesty, and "What Ifs" belongs firmly within that tradition. The genre's lyrical conventions prize emotional authenticity over clever sophistication, and the song's straightforward engagement with fear and hope reflects those values. At the same time, the production's contemporary polish and the youth of its performers give the song a freshness that connected it with younger audiences who might not have considered themselves traditional country fans.
For Kane Brown specifically, the song's themes of navigating uncertainty while moving forward carried potential resonance with his own biography. An artist who had reached country music's mainstream through an unconventional path, who had faced questions about whether someone with his background could find acceptance in a genre with particular cultural associations, might plausibly bring personal understanding to lyrics about risking something precious on an uncertain outcome. Whether or not biographical interpretation is appropriate, the emotional authenticity of his performance was widely recognized as a key factor in the song's appeal.
The song's cultural reception demonstrated that country music audiences in 2017 were receptive to direct, emotionally honest explorations of romantic vulnerability from young artists. The combination of relatable thematic content, strong vocal performances, and polished production gave "What Ifs" a broad appeal that extended beyond the genre's traditional demographic boundaries, reinforcing the ongoing expansion of country music's audience through the mid-to-late 2010s. Its enduring popularity on streaming platforms suggests that its emotional core continues to resonate with listeners encountering it for the first time years after its initial release.
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