Elevate is the second studio album by Big Time Rush. It was released on November 21st, 2011 by Columbia Records in association with Nickelodeon. The band worked with accomplished songwriters and producers for the album. These include those that assisted with the material from their debut album, such as Emanuel Kiriakou, Lindy Robbins, Nicholas RAS Furlong, Damon Sharpe, Eric Sanicola, and Lucas Secon, along with other notable songwriters and producers, such as JR Rotem, Christopher Stewart, The-Dream, Jay Sean, and Ryan Tedder. The production process of the album took place between nine months to a year, most of which was during their touring process.
The album acts as the soundtrack to the Nickelodeon television series, Big Time Rush, which features songs that appeared in the series’ second season. Following the success of their first release, the band was inspired to be more involved in the writing process for this album, writing together or separately a total of eight songs. Elevate is mainly a pop and dance album, which incorporates elements of several musical genres such as electropop, urban pop, synthpop, and rock. The first single from Elevate, "Music Sounds Better With U", was released on November 1st, 2011. The single has not charted on Billboard yet, but is currently charting on #26 of America's Music Charts.So far, only If I Ruled The World and Music Sounds Better With Youhas been released. On October 21th, Celebuzz.com revealed the official tracklist of Elevate, which was given to them by Columbia Records. The album contains twelve songs, including:
Note: Clever TV confirmed that BTR had 25 songs for the album but narrowed it down to 13. Blow Your Speaker is a bonus song in iTunes,Paralyzed a bonus song on the BTR official site and Epic is a bonus in the UK.
While visiting the United Kingdom in 2012, the band revealed 4 alternate covers for the album exclusive to the country, each one featuring individual pictures of each of the members and an autograph. These Special Editions were released at the same time the regular UK edition did (February 6th) and share the same tracklist. These special covers are presented in slipcase package.
Elevate debuted at number twelve on the US Billboard 200, selling over 70,000 copies (according to Billboard) in its first-week. It's the band's highest first-week album sales, their debut album BTR sold 67,000 copies on its first week. As of March 1, 2012 Elevate has sold over 208,000 copies in the U.S. so far according to Nielsen Soundscan. As of September 4,2013 Elevate has gone Double Platinum.
Track Listing
- Music Sounds Better With You (feat. Mann)
- Show Me
- All Over Again
- No Idea
- Cover Girl
- Love Me, Love Me
- If I Ruled the World (feat. Iyaz)
- Invisible
- Time Of Our Life
- Superstar
- You're Not Alone
- Elevate
- Blow Your Speakers (iTunes bonus track/ Not available anymore)
- Paralyzed (if purchased via the official BTR website)
- Epic (UK only)
- Windows Down (2012 re-release bonus track)
Outtakes
These are the songs that did not make it onto the album.
- Intermission
- I Wanna Hold Your Hand (later added on to the Big Time Movie Soundtrack)
- Anything Goes (snippets leaked by Carlos)
- Star U Are
- Heya
- Story of My Life
- Perfect