On This Day in 2014, Miranda Lambert Released a Duet That Achieved a Feat Not Seen Since Reba McEntire in the 90s

On this day (May 19) in 2014, Miranda Lambert released “Somethin’ Bad,” a duet with Carrie Underwood, as the second single from Platinum. Later that year, it went to No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart. This marked the first time two solo women teamed up for a No. 1 single in more than 20 years. The last time it happened, Reba McEntire and Linda Davis were at No. 1 with “Does He Love You” in 1993.

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Country music is full of women who are outstanding songwriters and performers. However, male artists take up the lion’s share of the space. This was especially true in the 2010s, when bro-country dominated the genre’s charts and airwaves. For instance, two singles by women reached the top of the Hot Country Songs chart in 2014. “Somethin’ Bad” was at No. 1 for a week in July. Then, in November, Underwood returned to the top spot with “Something in the Water,” which reigned for three consecutive weeks. One single with a woman as a lead artist topped the Country Airplay chart that year. Maddie & Tae were at No. 1 for a week in late December with “Girl in a Country Song.”

[RELATED: The Meaning Behind Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert’s ‘Thelma and Louise’-Inspired “Somethin’ Bad” ]

This context makes Lambert and Underwood’s success throughout the decade that much more impressive. If any women in country music were going to do something that was last done by McEntire in the 1990s, it was them.

Miranda Lambert Was Nervous About Connecting with Carrie Underwood

Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood were both huge stars at the time. That didn’t keep Lambert from being a little starstruck by her duet partner, though. According to Songfacts, she was nervous to reach out about the collaboration.

“It took me forever to write the email to ask her, like I was writing to someone I had a crush on, and you don’t want to mess it up,” she recalled. “It took a week for her to get back to me, and I was telling Blake [Shelton], ‘She hates me, she hates the song, she’s never going to talk to me again. She’s probably going to change her email address!’ She finally wrote me back and said, ‘I think it’s awesome. Let’s do it.’”

Lambert’s nerves didn’t settle until they began working on the song. “When you respect someone like that, you get nervous,” she said. “To hit the notes she hits, I would have to take off running and jump as high as I could.”

The nervousness disappeared somewhere along the way. When they debuted the song on the Billboard Music Awards the night before its release, Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood looked right at home on stage together.

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