Gwyneth Paltrow Never Delivered on the Country Album That Was Supposed to Launch Her Music Career
You may know Gwyneth Paltrow best from her work as an actor or an entrepreneur with her lifestyle company GOOP. But you may not realize the 50-year-old is not only a singer, but she’s also smitten with country music.
In fact, at one point in her career, Paltrow signed a contract to record a country album. What happened to that album? Much like her music career, it never launched.
Gwyneth Paltrow dabbled in music in the early 2010s
In the early 2010s, Paltrow had a string of events that led her down the country music road. As The Atlantic reports, she played a country musician in the 2010 movie Country Strong. She also landed a recurring role in the popular TV show Glee. She performed at the Country Music Awards, Grammys, and Oscars to cap all that off.
With all these singing opportunities, Paltrow became interested in exploring her singing talents. The recording industry seemed to agree. In March 2011, she signed a contract with Atlantic Records to release her debut country album later that year.
Many people agree with you if that sounds like something a little out of her wheelhouse. But Paltrow was very enthusiastic about the idea.
Gwyneth Paltrow said she ‘really fell in love with country music’
Taste of Country reports that Paltrow didn’t expect to become a country music fan. But when preparing for her role in Country Strong, she learned something about herself and the music:
“I felt very liberated when I was singing it, because I was petrified! It was the first track that I cut, and I worked on it with my singing teacher in London for months before I flew here and was recording it with Byron Gallimore.
I felt, ‘I don’t know if I can pull this off, this music, it’s serious. It’s great. It’s hard to sing.’ But when I first started doing it, I felt very liberated by it, like, ‘No, I can do this. I have to find it within myself.'”
She enjoyed the singing so much that she came to appreciate the music. “The amazing thing to me was, I really fell in love with country music. I never expected that it would become a part of who I am,” she explained. “It was a completely unexpected side-effect of doing the movie.”
Despite her dedication to her newfound craft, Paltrow never did release an album. For whatever reason, it didn’t work out for her to be a country singer. But don’t worry; she’s managed to find success in a few other ways.
Gwyneth Paltrow is better known for other things
Paltrow may not have been destined for a career as a country singer, but she hasn’t done too badly for herself. She has a long list of acting credits, from her Oscar-winning role in Shakespeare in Love to a less successful turn as Sylvia Plath in the biopic Sylvia. In 2008, she blazed a path into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Pepper Potts in Iron Man.
The same year, she started a lifestyle and wellness company called GOOP. It launched as a weekly newsletter and soon became a massive online business. Although GOOP is the target of much criticism, it’s also become a huge success.
Paltrow came close to trying her hand at country music. For some reason, the album that was supposed to start it all never happened, so the world will never know what could have been.
