Rating: 6/10

I can sense the number of readers/followers I’m about to upset or outright lose with this take on Jason Aldean, and on the surface, I understand. It’s easy to hear the name Jason Aldean and think “Dirt Road Anthem” and resent him for his introduction of rap into the mainstream. It’s easy to think of the even more atrocious “1994,” a stain on the country genre and really all of music that I wish I could forget. But Aldean’s also given us songs like “The Truth,” “Fly Over States,” and “Amarillo Sky.” He’s released “Night Train,” separating himself from his counterparts by singing a song with the same themes but with more detailed and clever imagery. More than that, he’s always included solid, even stellar album cuts. He’s a frustrating artist because it’s hard not to wonder why he keeps those good songs buried, but at the same time, he’s refreshingly consistent. When you press play on a Jason Aldean record, you know what you’re getting–some forgettable or even awful singles and some truly great gems to go along with them. Aldean’s never going to blow you away with his songwriting or give you any profound revelations, but that’s not what you come to a Jason Aldean record for anyway, and if he were the worst thing on country radio, we honestly wouldn’t have much to complain about anymore.

It’s because on a Jason Aldean album, there is consistent balance. I don’t want to speak for stricter traditionalists out there, but most of us are simply advocating for balance. Most of us don’t have a problem with pop country or even modern influences per se, but our issue lies in the fact that this music is the only option and eradicating the traditional and the substantive in the mainstream. Aldean’s not offering traditional, but his records do provide a balance of substance, and that makes it easier to tolerate the crap.

On the substantive side of this record, we have several standouts. That’s another consistent thing about aldean; when he’s good, he’s pretty great. One highlight is the collaboration with Miranda Lambert called “Drowns the Whiskey,” taking the classic country heartbreak song and making it fresh and modern. I do wish we heard Miranda a bit more–I always prefer these things when the featured artist actually has some solo lines instead of just providing harmonies–but she’s actually distinctive, gets more than one or two obligatory lines, and imagine this, is actually a country star instead of some random pop princess. There’s also some pretty substantial steel in this track, which is always an added bonus.

The title track and “Blacktop Gone” frame this song in the heart of the album, and together, these three create the strongest portion of the record. “Blacktop Gone” and “Rearview Town” are mirror images of each other, each reflecting the same theme of leaving a one-horse town and each delivered in the same key, like two halves of the same thought. “Blacktop Gone” is the lighter version, with the narrator seeming to leave this town in good spirits simply because he’s looking for freedom and a new life. It seems to be something he’s always wanted to do, as if he never had any intention of staying here longer than was necessary. The title track is a more melancholy picture, with our narrator deeply affected by having to leave. He knows he can’t make it in this town, and memories also haunt him, but he still hates to leave it behind–“never thought I’d ever leave it.”

“Better at Being Who I Am” provides another great moment lyrically, as well as what feels like a very real moment for Aldean, depicting a character who is breaking it off with a lover because they’re just too different. He’s better on his side of the tracks and being himself; “The square peg, round hole things’ too hard.” “High Noon Neon” also portrays the classic country breakup song in a more modern way, much like “Drowns the Whiskey.” I can only guess why electronic production is his choice on these songs and really on much of this record, as he usually veers toward arena rock, but both of these tracks suffer from overproduction and from generally not sounding sonically like Jason aldean. That said, they’re still two of the strongest lyrically. The arena rock style is displayed on “I’ll Wait For You” to decent effect to convey the desperation in this particular song, and although I’m not the greatest “You Make it Easy” apologist, finding it more boring than anything, it can be counted on the more substantive half as well.

The thing about the other half of this and about Jason aldean as an artist is even when it’s not great, it’s mostly believable. Aldean sings with conviction and passion, and it’s hard to call him inauthentic. I know that word’s been misused and manipulated to death by mainstream and independent crowds alike, but the point is that Jason Aldean genuinely sounds like a guy who’s set foot in some rearview towns and gotten drunk on some tailgates. He appeals to a blue collar demographic in a way that actually seems real and borne of experience, as opposed to many of his mainstream peers. Instead of developing that into more stuff like the title track or “Amarillo Sky,” he generally chooses to spend about half his album on back roads. The result is that the majority of the rest of this becomes forgettable, interchangeable material, but it’s at least delivered with some personality and heart.

I have to single out the God-awful exceptions to this, though, which come in “Like You Were Mine” and “Gettin’ Warmed Up.” He attempts to rap in both of them, something someone should really tell him to never do again because as a singer, Jason’s got charisma, but as a rapper, he is shockingly bad. The latter, aside from the rap, is literally, right down to the title, a carbon copy of his former hit “Just Gettin’ started.” I actually put on that track and noticed that one of the lyrics there is “we’re just gettin’ warmed up.” We’re always saying mainstream country is out of ideas and rehashing old clichés and drumbeats, but this is literally like Aldean and his team took that song and said, “Hey, this worked once. Can we do this again?”

The other major problem, as I mentioned before, is the electronic production. It’s not even so much that it’s electronic production over more country sounds–although I wouldn’t object to more country sounds if he wanted to use them–it’s that it doesn’t sound like Aldean sonically. “I’ll Wait For You” is one of the few songs which sounds like him with its arena rock style. He traditionally hasn’t gravitated toward all these drum loops. They’re cluttered on “Better at Being Who I Am” and unnecessary on other songs. “Drowns the Whiskey,” which features all that steel and sings of heartbreak, might have bridged the mainstream/independent gap well if it sounded more like normal Aldean, but more traditional-minded fans probably won’t get past that loop. It all feels very trend-chasing, and it’s really kind of odd considering how consistently Jason Aldean this is in basically all other aspects.

So, in standard Jason Aldean style, he’s given us a mixed record. The good songs here are standouts, providing some quality and substance in the midst of the endless party. As for the endless party itself, at least for the most part it has some personality. If he could just refrain from rapping, there wouldn’t be anything God-awful here, just a lot of filler. But this is basically what you expect from a Jason Aldean release, and as I said before, if this were the worst that came out of the mainstream, we wouldn’t have much of a problem.

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