Lauren Alaina teamed up with Kane Brown on a new duet about a decade after their infectious anthem, “What Ifs.”

The duo delivered “Never Been In Love” on Friday (July 17), the latest track to appear on Alaina’s upcoming studio record, Stages. Alaina wrote the upbeat track with Ashley Gorley and Ben Johnson: “I, I've never been in love/ I swear I thought I was, but now it's time the truth came out/ Oh/ I said it a thousand times/ Now I know I was lying/ I’ve never been in love 'til now.”

“I wrote 'Never Been In Love (feat. Kane Brown)' about the stage of life I'm in now,” Alaina said in a statement. “I remember falling for my husband and feeling different than I've ever felt before. When you find true love and happiness, you realize how much you never had it in past relationships. I'm so excited to sing this song with my boy, Kane Brown. We've come a long way from those two kids singing 'What Ifs' ten years ago. It's so exciting to sing this song to celebrate the love we have with our spouses and children.”

Alaina and Brown announced “Never Been In Love” with a hilarious Love Island-inspired parody on Instagram earlier this month. The reveal arrived after a series of subtle teasers on Alaina’s social media accounts. The former American Idol contestant confirmed she’d been hinting at the collaboration “for months,” and “you guys just didn’t know it.” She said she’d seen “lots of wrong guesses,” and offered some hints, including that her mystery duet partner had scored multiple multi-genre No. 1s, got his start on social media, and is a big family man, among other clues.

“Never Been In Love” is the latest song to arrive from Alaina’s 17-track album, Stages. It follows “Those Kind Of Women,” “Household,” “Better Off,” “Raining Whiskey,” “All My Exes” with Chase Matthew, “Little Things” and “Heaven Sent.” Stages follows Wildflower (2011), Road Less Traveled (2017), and Sitting Pretty on Top of the World (2021).

“I'm fifteen years into a ten-year town and 31 years into a lifelong dream,” Alaina said in a statement when she announced her fourth album. “Stages represents every version of me along the way: the dreaming, the breaking, and, ultimately, the becoming. There's something on this album for everyone, no matter what stage of life they're in. Stages is letting everyone see behind the curtain of the girl in the spotlight. It's a reflection of the moments that shaped me and the dream that carried me through. It's always been the same dream, different stages.”

Alaina will take the stage on her headlining “The Stages Tour” later this year. The run of shows will include Shane Profitt, Ashley Kutcher and Hannah Harper, who became the first female country artist to win American Idol since Carrie Underwood’s career-launching win in 2005. Alaina said the tour “feels like my most personal yet. Stages is all about the different chapters I've lived through: the highs, the heartbreaks, the growth, and finding joy in who I am today. Every stage of my life has shaped this music, and now I finally get to bring all of these songs to stages around the country and share them with the fans who've been with me through it all. I hope people leave these shows feeling seen, healed, and maybe even a little more hopeful.” Scroll below to find the lsit od tour dates.

Alaina will release Stages on August 28. Listen to “Never Been In Love” here:

The Bobby Bones Show