Kelsea Ballerini Proves Females Can Score Top 5 Hits, Too

Kelsea Ballerini — of country's newest females — is celebrating a huge achievement that flies in the face of the "country is a male format" crowd. Her debut single, "Love Me Like You Mean It," has reached No. 5 on the Mediabase country chart, and it's still climbing.

"As a new artist releasing a first single, all you want is for it to be heard, to make a good first impression,” Ballerini says in a press release. “The fact that country radio is embracing it is more than I could ask for. I want to hug everyone."

Ballerini co-wrote the flirty track with Josh Kerr, Forest Glen Whitehead and Lance Carpenter, mixing modern country instrumentation with a message all about looking for true love and avoiding players.

The news is all the more special since it comes in the wake of #SaladGate, when a radio programming consultant suggested stations should cut back on female singers, since listeners didn't want to hear them as much as male singers.

That's not all the good news for Ballerini, though. Her debut album, The First Time, landed in the Top 5 of Billboard's country albums chart, she'll be out with Lady Antebellum’s Wheels Up tour for select dates throughout the summer and her video for "Love Me Like You Mean It" is up for breakthrough video of the year at the 2015 CMT Music Awards. She's up against Chase Rice's "Gonna Wanna Tonight," Frankie Ballard's "Sunshine & Whiskey," Maddie & Tae's "Girl In a Country Song," RaeLynn's "God Made Girls" and Sam Hunt's "Leave the Night On." Voting is open here.

Kelsea Ballerini on Her 'First Times'

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