Wildflower

"I have always dreamed of making an album and I can't believe it's actually happening," she says. "It's because of the fans who voted for me on American Idol that I am here, so I am dedicating this album to them. I hope they love it!

"I feel like it has a flavor for everybody. It's a mixture of all different songs, so I hope it will appeal to all different kinds of people. There are fast songs for people who like up-tempos that you can dance to, and there are also tearjerkers for people who like slower ballads. I tried to get songs that are all a little different so that we could bring a fresh feel to each and every song."

Sixteen-year-old Lauren was the runner-up on Season 10 of American Idol. A record-breaking 122.4 million votes were cast for Lauren and winner Scotty McCreery, and 38.6 million viewers tuned in to see the finale. The project's debut single is "Like My Mother Does," which she performed first on American Idol. The video for "Like My Mother Does" was released on Monday and can be seen on CMT and GAC.

For the album Lauren recorded "She's a Wildflower," written by Hillary Lindsey, Steven McEwan and Gordie Simpson, and Lauren connected so strongly with the song that she chose Wildflower as the album's title. "Wildflower is the perfect name for my first album," she says. "I would consider myself a wildflower because wildflowers are sweet, but then they have a little bit of spunk to them - they are `wildflowers.' I like to have a lot of fun and I'm really sassy, so I feel like a wildflower would be a good description of who I am as a person."

Lauren had a unique recording experience with her first album. Because she was on the American Idols Live! Tour, she recorded in several studios across the United States with producer Byron Gallimore in addition to holding several sessions in Nashville. "I really enjoyed working with him," she says of Gallimore, who has worked with Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and Lee Ann Womack, among others. "I was nervous at first because I thought it was going to be really intense and hard and maybe even intimidating, but he made me feel right at home. I consider him family now. It was a great learning experience for me and I had a lot of fun."