Tigirlily Gold

A spirited sister duo, Tigirlily Gold specialize in smooth, gleaming country-pop, a sound that suits both sprightly radio-ready numbers and ballads. While their earliest singles "Intuition" and "Best in Me" demonstrated a facility with modern pop rhythms, their eponymous major-label EP from 2021 and its accompanying single "Somebody Does" demonstrate their ease at singing melodic country in the vein of vintage Chicks and Taylor Swift. Tigirlily Gold added a strut on 2023's "Shoot Tequila" but "I Tried a Ring On," the second single from their first album Blonde, showed they hadn't lost an ounce of sweetness.

Tigirlily Gold -- pronounced "tiger" "lilly," they added the "Gold" to their appellation in 2022 -- is Kendra and Krista Slaubaugh, two sisters from Hazen, North Dakota. When they were 16 and 14, respectively, the Slaubaugh sisters formed Tigirlily in 2013. Within a few years, they were touring locally and posting recordings to YouTube. The duo moved to Nashville in 2017, enrolling in Belmont University (they'd both graduate in 2020) and settling into a residency at Dierks Bentley's Whiskey Row club. The group continued to consolidate a fan base through social media and touring, landing plum gigs opening for Justin Moore, Chris Janson, and LeAnn Rimes. A pair of digital singles, "Intuition" and "Best in Me," arrived in 2020.

A deal with Monument Records was announced on March 12, 2021, shortly after the single "Somebody Does" became the group's first single to gain traction on social media and streaming. Monument released Tigirlily's eponymous EP in July; it featured songs they co-wrote with Walker Hayes, Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne, and Zarni deVette. Within a couple of months, the pair made an appearance on the soap opera The Young and the Restless. They wrapped up an eventful 2021 with the holiday single, "Where Are You Christmas."

Not long into 2022, the duo officially became Tigirlily Gold. They spent the year woodshedding then returned in 2023 with "Shoot Tequila," a swaggering piece of country-pop that peaked at 47 on Billboard's Country Airplay. "Shoot Tequila" also anchored the Blonde EP, which arrived in June 2023. Christmas 2023 brought another seasonal single in "Falalala Falling."

Early in 2024, the Academy of Country Music Awards named Tigirlily Gold as New Duo or Group of the Year, an honor that happened around the time "I Tried a Ring On" climbed to 48 on Country Airplay. It, along with its sequel "Leroy," set up the release of the full-length Blonde, which appeared in July 2024. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine