Six years after ‘F-150,’ Robyn Ottolini releases debut album

Canadian country singer Robyn Ottolini released her 13-track debut album, A Safe Place to Land, on Aug. 21. The Uxbridge, Ont., songwriter has described the record as a “reintroduction” after several years of career changes.

Photo: Courtesy Robyn Ottolini

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Canadian country singer Robyn Ottolini has released her debut album, A Safe Place to Land, six years after “F-150” turned the Uxbridge, Ont., songwriter into a breakout country artist.

Released Aug. 21, the 13-track album arrives after a career stretch that included a major-label deal, a CCMA Rising Star win, the end of that label relationship and a period when Ottolini says she considered stepping away from performing altogether.

Now signed with ONErpm, Ottolini has described A Safe Place to Land as a “reintroduction” — one in which she took a much larger role in shaping not only the songs, but the visual identity surrounding the record.

The album was primarily produced by Ottolini’s friend and collaborator Lenny Pey. Ottolini has a writing credit on every song, with the record moving through relationships, bad dates, heartbreak, self-acceptance and growing older.

“F-150” broke through in 2020 after gaining traction on TikTok. Warner Music Nashville signed Ottolini, and the song went on to become her first top-10 hit on the Billboard Canada Country Airplay chart.

The song has since surpassed 60 million streams, while Ottolini’s catalogue has accumulated more than 160 million streams across platforms, according to current industry material released around her signing with ONErpm.

A year after her breakout, Ottolini won Rising Star at the 2021 Canadian Country Music Association Awards, her first CCMA win, and performed “F-150” during the show.

She has since shared stages with artists including Shania Twain and Tim McGraw.

But the early momentum did not turn immediately into a debut album.

In a new interview with Entertainment Focus, Ottolini said she was dropped by her record label around 2023 and later parted ways with the management team she had worked with for years.

She said there was a point when she questioned whether she wanted to continue performing and considered focusing on songwriting instead.

What followed was a period of rebuilding, including a new creative partnership with Pey.

Ottolini’s official biography describes A Safe Place to Land as a return “on her own terms,” with the singer taking a hands-on role in the music videos, artwork and clothing connected to the project.

Her website describes the visual style as “whimsical blue-collar.”

Ottolini, who grew up on a dead-end country road in Ontario, has also incorporated family hand-me-downs, thrifted materials and hand-sewn clothing into the album’s visual world.

“For my debut album, I really wanted to bring that sense of wonder and fearlessness that I had as a kid,” Ottolini says in her official album biography.

That idea carries into several of the songs.

Opening track “Growing Down” centres on getting older while becoming more comfortable with who you are.

“Airplane Bottle” takes on bad dates, while “If Hell Were a Bar” deals with heartbreak. “Wranglin’ the Wind” looks at a relationship where love does not mean trying to change the other person, and “God Knows I Try” focuses on accepting imperfection.

The album title also has a personal connection for Ottolini.

In an interview published by People on release day, Ottolini said she returned home to Canada following her 2025 tour while making significant changes in her life, including giving up alcohol.

She described her family as her “safe place to land” and said the time at home fed into both her life and her songwriting.

Ottolini told the magazine she had initially worried that not drinking could affect her ability to write. Instead, she said songs including “Growing Down” and “Unfamiliar Heaven” came out of the period that followed.

She has since signed with ONErpm for the release of her debut album.

A Safe Place to Land arrives considerably later than listeners might have expected after the sudden success of “F-150,” but Ottolini has said the intervening years changed the way she approaches her work.

“I’m capable of more than I thought,” she says in her official biography. “I learned to trust my vision.”

A Safe Place to Land is available now.