On this day (June 17) in 2016, Blake Shelton was at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart with If I’m Honest. The album spent four nonconsecutive weeks in the peak position between June and August. Notably, the LP features a duet with Gwen Stefani, whom Shelton had recently started dating. Additionally, the Oak Ridge Boys appear on the Paul Overstreet-penned “Doin’ It to Country Songs.”
The time surrounding the recording of If I’m Honest was a complicated one for Shelton. On one hand, his divorce from Miranda Lambert had been finalized less than a year before the LP dropped. On the other hand, he was a coach on The Voice, where he met and fell in love with Gwen Stefani. They started dating in November 2015, six months before the album hit shelves and streaming platforms. As a result, he largely chose songs that highlighted the ups and downs he’d experienced.
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“I don’t even know how to talk about this album as a piece of music, as I do just a timeline,” he told The Tennessean. “As country artists go, I think we’re supposed to sing about our life experiences, and I’ve done that before, but not to this extent.”
Blake Shelton’s Collaboration with Gwen Stefani
“Go Ahead and Break My Heart” is a standout track on If I’m Honest. Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani wrote and recorded it together. It was more than a songwriting session for them, though.
“She and I sat down and wrote this song about some serious insecurities we had when we first started down this road with each other, and we both had trust issues,” Shelton told People. Stefani had recently gone through a divorce as well. They bonded over the heartbreaking situation and helped one another heal.
“We were getting over it, but we wrote this song about it,” Shelton said. “It’s perfect. I couldn’t be happier about that song and the way it came about… It’s like people getting a look at something personal for the first time.”
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