We’ve been waiting for Cam to deliver us something in the vein of “Burning House” ever since that song came out and showed such promise. There was nothing really like it on her debut album, and “Diane” was really a great single lyrically, but it was bogged down by busy, pop production that rendered it virtually ruined. “Road to Happiness” is the closest thing we’ve yet seen to that beautiful song, acoustic and heartfelt, and it’s this type of song where Cam really shines as an interpreter.
Similar to “Burning House,” there’s not much here in the way of instrumentation; it’s primarily driven by acoustic guitar and keeps the main focus on the lyrics and vocals. Cam sings thoughtfully of the paths we all take looking for that elusive thing known as happiness–“it’s the wild unknown, it’s a ball and chain” seems like such a simple line, but it’s a great showcasing of how we all seek happiness in different ways. Some of us don’t want to be tied down and find joy in freedom, while others find their greatest fulfillment in loving another for the rest of their lives. She asks, “is the future that we’re chasing worth the right nows that we miss, on this road to happiness?” What a question, putting everything into perspective, and what a bleak way to look at things if we’re so caught up in reaching some indeterminate destination that we lose sight of the little joys in life right at our fingertips. It’s a really simple song, much like “Burning House” was, and yet, like that song, the lyrics are deceivingly complex and thought-provoking. Cam is at her best when she’s capturing that beauty in simplicity, and when her voice and lyrics aren’t drowned out by overproduction. As a fan of Cam and her potential, this song is exactly what I’ve been waiting for from her.
Okay, so am I the only one who actually used to enjoy Sugarland? I’ve seen such an outpouring of hatred toward this duo leading up to this album that it seems like everyone has always hated them. I enjoyed their first two records, and indeed, I still play Twice the Speed of Life frequently. It was their third album, Love on the Inside, where things started to turn toward more pop and less substance. That record was uneven; I enjoyed about half of it. Then “Stuck Like Glue” infected the airwaves, and that has to be one of my most despised songs ever, including anything any of the bros have ever released. Their breakup felt inevitable and almost overdue, and yet now we’re looking at Sugarland 2.0 several years later for some inexplicable reason. This record isn’t horrific, but it proves that the dying embers of Sugarland should have never been revived.
They could have gone back to what made them popular and likable in the first place, but of course that isn’t the case, and this shows them doubling down on the pop direction that hindered their last two records. Understand, there’s nothing wrong with pop country, and there’s nothing wrong with pop music as long as it’s not incorrectly labeled–but whose idea was this to take Jennifer nettles’ undeniable, sometimes even exaggerated to the point of annoying, twang and pair it with pop beats and electronic elements? No one is going to make Katy Perry try to sing like Loretta Lynn because it would sound absolutely ridiculous; you can’t take a good chunk of this album seriously with Nettles’ traditional country twang trying to fit into pop music. It doesn’t sound natural, and more than that, it doesn’t sound flattering to her at all.
The writing is often incredibly generic and bland as well–I already wrote about how “Still the Same” is supposed to be this great comeback song, and it just ultimately says nothing. “Babe” takes unapologetic advantage of Taylor Swift by giving her a few syllables and allowing her name to make this song a talking point, assuring its success on country radio. Say what you want about Taylor Swift, but she’s a great songwriter and a smart businesswoman, and there’s a reason she left this off Red. She realized that it was subpar material for her and wisely chose not to cut it. It’s got the makings of a good song about a woman’s reaction to finding out her man has been cheating, but again, it’s just so generic in its execution. “Bigger” and “On a Roll” are two of those incredibly upbeat, optimistic numbers that make for bland, boring filler which add nothing to the album, and as if “Stuck Like Glue” didn’t already prove she couldn’t do it, Jennifer Nettles makes the latter track insufferable by rapping. With that twang, she may honestly be the worst rapper I have ever heard.
There are some really lame attempts to get political with this album. The problem with songs like this is that often they’re just too vapid and shallow to say anything of actual importance. “Bird in a Cage” seems to be about hypocrisy and forsaking what the church would have us believe, but it’s incredibly vague and almost comes off condescending when it says, “it’s hard to explain to a bird in a cage,” as if the audience to whom this track is being addressed is too stupid to understand it. “Tuesday’s Broken” is cited on Apple Music as a song about gun control–this is not entirely correct, as it paints two different portraits, one of a mass shooter and one of a girl contemplating suicide, and asks if the world wouldn’t be a better place if we just reached out and loved people. It’s a good message, and also one of the more stripped-back, country moments, but it still lacks a lot in the writing. “Let me Remind You” is described on Apple Music is being about women’s empowerment, and this actually made me laugh out loud when I heard it because it is simply a sex song and a boring one at that–I’m not faulting Sugarland for these descriptors, I’m just amused by the attempt of Apple Music to advertise this as some sort of progressive, forward-thinking project when it’s actually so bland and uninteresting.
But there are some brighter moments on this album. One comes in the heartwarming “Mother”–which incidentally is far more empowering to women than “Let me Remind You”–a song that actually manages to go deeper than the surface and celebrate motherhood in a respectful way. Sure, it’s still pretty listastic, but it’s on a song like this where the details and examples work pretty well. “Love me Like I’m Leaving” and “Not the Only” both provide some actual country instrumentation and flavor at the end of the record, and these display Nettles at her best vocally. Both are flattering to her voice, and neither shows her exaggerating her accent. Kristian Bush’s harmony also works much better on these songs, the former depicting a woman who finally has the courage to leave after turning back at the last minute so many times before, and the latter crying out for others who feel the same loneliness and pain in this crazy world.
I’ve heard worse pop country albums. It’s not an offensive or shockingly terrible record, except for the God-awful “on a Roll.” It’s just so colorless and uneventful for so much of this. It’s like almost no effort was made in the songwriting, everything going for the most basic and shallow of sentiments. The sound doesn’t suit Jennifer Nettles in any universe for a good portion of this, and although there are times when you can see flashes of the earliest version of Sugarland, they’re few and far between on this record. Not a horrifically bad album, but an underwhelming, disappointing, forgettable effort that makes me question why we needed a reboot of Sugarland in the first place.
Lots of pleasant surprises came for me on Friday, not least the release of two new Florida Georgia Line songs into the atmosphere that are actually pretty decent. Before we go any further, I can see how both of these songs, especially “Simple,” will be polarizing, and I am in no way suggesting these will be universally liked, but I will say that to refuse to listen because of the artist is not the right way. As a reviewer, I am excited when artists I have previously hated or openly criticized give us something better–there’s no place in the critical realm for hatred of artists specifically on principle, and if FGL or anyone else releases better music, it’s only an improvement for the genre we all love. Like what you like, but always keep an open mind.
“Simple”
This one is the official single, and basically, Florida Georgia Line decided to go full-on Lumineers with this. You can see immediately why I said it will be polarizing; this sound breeds conflict as much as anything FGL have previously recorded. It’s like pop country with a bluegrass influence, with a banjo driving the song instead of being buried in the mix and thrown in just as a token country instrument.
Lyrically, it’s about as simple as the title suggests, painting a picture of a love that’s easy and doesn’t need anything complicating it. They talk of once living on social media, obsessed with “who all gives a damn,” until they realized life’s about the little things. It’s a message many will be able to relate to and which should be expressed more often in a time where people live on their phones and the Internet, and many are more comfortable behind their screens than actually communicating with others face-to-face. There’s also the fact that people don’t go outside and absorb nature because they’re glued to technology–in the end, the sunsets you saw will matter more than the Twitter likes you received, and so many people have lost sight of that. This song isn’t deep at all lyrically, and the spelling out of “simple” in the chorus is pretty annoying, but the message is strong and timely.
The spelling can be pretty obnoxious, though, especially at the end of the song. Tyler Hubbard is still an underwhelming and frankly annoying vocalist, and as stated, the lyrics aren’t earth-shattering by any means. But it’s a catchy, solid song from the duo nonetheless. Not amazing, but a pretty good song and certainly one of their best singles in a good long while.
Rating: 6/10
“Colorado”
Now we come to the one I’m most excited about, “Colorado.” I wish they’d have waited and released this one as a single as well instead of including it in with “Simple” like some modern-day version of a B-side on a record.
From the opening lines, “I got friends from Colorado, I got friends from Tennessee, so I got something in a bottle, and i got something from a seed,” I was a fan of this song. That’s just a really clever hook, and “Colorado” goes on to be about the narrator using whiskey and weed to help him get through a breakup after being engaged. Whiskey and weed are never mentioned, though, except in the outro where they’re called “Jack and Jane.” The metaphor there is that Jill, his fiancée, “ran away,” but “Jill’s got nothing on Jack and Jane.”
There’s an ironic resemblance to “Simple” in this song, although the subjects are basically the opposite. In this one, the narrator is “drunk up in the Smokies on a Rocky Mountain high,” with “no cars, no bars on my phone.” I don’t think it was intentional, but it’s interesting that both of these songs forsake technology.
Vocally, this one does suit Tyler Hubbard better, and surprisingly, Brian Kelley actually gets solo lines in the bridge. Like “Simple,” this song also features country instrumentation and fits nicely in the pop country realm.
“Colorado” is a catchy, lyrically smart offering from fGL with a clever hook and some actual organic instrumentation. I wish this had been chosen instead of “Simple,” or at least that they’d saved its release and made it another single, but it’s still a really good song from this group and for this listener, my favorite FGL song since “Dirt.”
The only thing remotely good about the atrocity that is Keith Urban’s latest album, Graffiti U, is that it’s made me want to listen to a lot of older Urban music, mainly to cleanse myself of that horror and to prove to myself what quality output he used to provide us. I’ve recommended him more than once as a modern pop country artist whose past material has been overlooked, underrated, and forgotten in light of the recent, generally appalling turns his music has taken. I realized I have never reflected on a pop country record before, so this seems like a really worthy place to start.
Release Date: 2002
Style: pop country
People Who Might Like This Album: any fan of 00’s country, those who like more modern sounds in country but still prefer organic instrumentation and lyrics with some substance
Standout Tracks: “Raining on Sunday,” “Somebody Like You,” “Who Wouldn’t Wanna be Me,” “Whenever I Run,” “What about Me,” “You’re Not my God”
Reflections: Man, this is just a really good album, and what a case for the fact that pop country isn’t inherently bad. When I was going back and spinning multiple Keith Urban records in an effort to drown the memory of his latest, I was struck by quality songs on all his first six albums, and I debated strongly within myself on whether to feature this one or Be Here. You can’t go wrong with either, but this one is just so enjoyable all the way through.
I mentioned that it’s mostly organic in instrumentation, and that’s the huge difference from this version of Keith versus the one we have now–his trademark sound is banjos mixed with electric guitars, something he’s talked about being rejected for by a record producer back in the 90’s. It was a sound that was thought to be too modern and progressive, and God, I wish he’d regress right back to it. He seems to be enjoying himself so much when playing these instruments, and he can’t seem to stop himself from adding extra vocal flourishes as well. I never noticed how little he does that anymore until I listened to this and noted the amount of random “ohs” and “mm’s” thrown in, not in the manner of today’s pop country, where it’s the whole chorus, but just because he seems to not be able to help himself from these inflections. His charisma and enjoyment has totally been lost on his recent output, and that’s a real shame.
As for the songs themselves, it’s embarrassing how far mainstream country has slipped since this came out. Some of the singles from this include “Somebody Like You,” a smart, infectious love song, “Who Wouldn’t wanna be Me,” an actual song about driving around on back roads that isn’t completely stupid, and Keith’s version of “Raining on Sunday,” which is one, definitely one of his best songs, and two, possibly the sexiest song in country music. Listening to this now, I can’t imagine why “What About Me” was never released as a single as well since it’s just as infectious and catchy as any of them. And if you doubted me about Keith’s general charisma and enjoyment of making music that came out all over this album, just give the final track, “You’re not my God,” a listen. And if you’ve heard this song and that last sentence makes no sense in light of it, you’re not listening hard enough…
I wish we could have this version of Keith Urban back. If we did, the state of modern pop country would be noticeably improved. As I say, his first six records are solid, and if you are someone who doesn’t mind modern sensibilities when the instrumentation is organic and the lyrics substantive, Urban’s discography is a good one to check out.
Keith Urban, you are so much better than this, and it gives me no pleasure whatsoever to write this review.
Honestly, this is insanely, shockingly bad. It’s an album where I was actually repeatedly taken aback by how awful each song turned out to be, a record where I kept hoping for some sort of saving grace, any glimpse of the talented, passionate artist Keith Urban can be and indeed used to be. If you asked me to name one modern country artist who has been criminally underrated or misrepresented by their current output, I’d direct you to Urban in a heartbeat–his first six solo records were solid, and I’ll stand by that. His last several have each at least carried hints of that talent. I expected this to be a disappointing album overall, but I did not imagine it would actually be one of the worst things I’ve ever heard, on the level of Walker Hayes and Sam Hunt. And you know what? In some ways, it’s worse when I have to say this about Keith Urban because I can’t say something like: Well, some of Sam Hunt’s music would be okay in pop, or Florida Georgia Line make some mindless music, but at least they’re being “authentic” to who they are and enjoying themselves. The thing is, this is not Urban, he knows better, he’s done better, and this is a pathetic attempt to stay relevant while losing many of his former core fans. It’s not even about whether this sounds like “real country”–it doesn’t by those terms, but Keith Urban was not particularly “real-country” sounding to begin with–it’s about the fact that it clearly doesn’t sound like Keith himself. I won’t even waste your time and mine debating the country qualities of it because there are too many other, and better, reasons why this album is terrible than how country it sounds.
The worst problem? The God-awful production that permeates this whole thing. There are some songs here, like “Same Heart” and “Way Too Long,” that actually don’t start out awful. There’s some decent writing here, and then it just gets buried in senseless, overproduced layers of crap until you can only pay attention to that element. Overproduced is not even the right word for this really. The production changes are so sporadic and pointless that it’s as if an eight-year-old broke into the recording studio and pressed every single button at random, and Keith thought it would be funny to send it out like that for human consumption. It’s not as if they layered too much pop sound or electronic beats or vocal effects–it’s not one thing, it’s all of them, and others, at different times, creating such a cacophony of distraction that it renders even the decent songs on paper unlistenable. “Same heart” actually sounds like two different songs from the verse to the chorus. “My Wave” probably wouldn’t have been a bad song if Keith had actually played it on his guitar, but instead it’s some sort of horrendously overproduced collaboration with Shy Carter. And we actually have beatboxing in “Never Comin’ Down,” which, in an album of horrifying material, may be the worst.
I said I didn’t hate “Female,” and actually, it’s one of the only songs here that doesn’t make me cringe. Its presence here is both made better by the fact it’s the only thing with some actual intelligence and maturity and good intentions in the verses and worse by the fact its chorus becomes somehow more stupid and the song itself so obviously opportunistic alongside the rest of this train wreck. As for actual female representation, we do have some; there’s Lindsay Ell in “Horses,” contributing about half a line…hey, Urban’s team, here’s a novel idea–release this to radio, so we can pretend that women are actually making progress when it goes to #1 automatically. You think that “half a line” is hyperbole? She literally only says, “run, run, run” a few times by herself…yes, that’s it. Any backup singer could have done that, and the women in “Female” who are not credited actually can be heard more, but if we feature Lindsay Ell on the track and then manipulate it up the charts, we can pretend we don’t have a tomato issue. Not to be unfair, Keith also has Kassi Ashton on “Drop Top,” and she actually gets a whole damn chorus. I mean, the song is like some 80’s pop tune about some girl at Coachella, but whatever. Ashton at least sings her part with some passion and energy. And of course he also has pop artist Julia Michaels participating for her obligatory four lines in the embarrassing Merle Haggard “Mama Tried” rip-off song known as “Coming Home,” so there’s that.
Speaking of which, while we’ve all been focused on how awful it is that he ripped off Merle, why don’t we take a second to point out that the rip-off is not even correct, or even on guitar? I mean, for God’s sake, Keith Urban is a phenomenal guitar player, and he couldn’t even play the damn riff on a guitar? Whether or not you think this album is country-sounding–it isn’t, let’s be fair–but regardless of semantics or genre or “real country” or whatever the hell you want to call it, can’t we all agree that Keith Urban is known more than anything for his guitar playing? He’s a great musician, and yet his guitar licks are nonexistent on this record. This is not just about what he’s doing to the country genre, it’s about the fact that this is an affront and an embarrassment to Keith Urban fans who fell in love with him for that sound. Not only that, but surely he enjoys that part of his career. Can he really be content with beatboxing instead of shredding, not even playing his guitar in a significant capacity once in awhile? Really?
As for the rip-offs and the mockery he actually is making of the country genre, “Coming Home” isn’t even the only instance of this. “Texas Time” is a less offensive but still obvious rip-off, this one of Don Williams’ “Tulsa Time.” Even despite that, this song is actually somewhat catchy and a decent pop track, except the eight-year-old hit the dying cow/vomiting guitar buttons simultaneously towards the end of this and managed to ruin it. Seriously, it sounds nothing short of piercing on headphones, and once again, it’s not a case of overproduction so much as a case of random, unnecessary, cacophonous production. I promise you, not every song on this is terrible by any means lyrically, but once they ran this through the blender of random sounds and cluttered beats, not one track here is actually listenable all the way through.
I tried to find some redeeming quality in this album. I tried to find some resemblance, some last vestiges of hope that the Keith Urban who gave us “But for the Grace of God” and “Making Memories of Us” is still in there somewhere. I tried to reconcile the man who sang “Raining on Sunday” with the one singing “Drop Top,” the one who made a career out of heartfelt songwriting and long guitar solos with the one now beatboxing and singing about Coachella. I wanted to find one good thing to say about this, and truthfully, I can’t. It’s not about country versus pop, and it’s not even completely about the legends whose music he’s defacing. It’s about the fact that Keith Urban has sold himself out completely and fantastically, has traded all shreds of dignity for fading relevancy, and has forsaken his talent and the things that make him unique as an artist in favor of pumping out the same generic crap as everyone else. If nothing else, Urban fans should be up in arms about the glaring and disgusting lack of Keith’s guitar on a fifteen-track album. Keith Urban fans, you deserve better. Country music, you deserve better. Keith Urban, you’re capable of delivering better, much better.
