I was genuinely surprised when I clicked on here and saw all the negative impressions it left on people. I think it’s pretty much typical Miranda Lambert. It’s in the same wheelhouse as “Gun Powder and Lead”, “Crazy Ex Girlfriend”, “White Liar”, “Kerosene” and all the rest of her “I’ll kick your butt” songs. It’s not like she was going to come out of the gate on this new album wearing a Versace evening gown and singing a Diane Warren ballad.

If you do hate the single and are a Miranda fan, I wouldn’t look too much into it. I mean, when “Dead Flowers” premiered it caused so much wailing and gnashing of teeth it was like reading Dante’s Inferno. But when the album came out, it was much ado about nothing. She’s never been a champ at picking lead off singles. I don’t care for “Crazy Ex Girlfriend” or “Me and Charlie Talking” but loved those respective albums as a whole.

I really hope Baggage Claim does well for her. I’d much rather hear that on my radio than the 75048th spin of “Country Girl Shake It For Me” or that dreadful “Homeboy” song that my local station is currently so fond of.

The sound is so badly compressed here much like most of “Revolution” was too. In spite of that, I have to admit I do like the flourishes of organ pipe here. And once you get your head around the loudness wars, the production is actually a nice change of pace from most else country radio is presently churning out. To my ears anyway, you hear some mid-70′s rock and roll and blues music flavors here, and that makes a welcome respite from the format’s fervid obsession with mid-to-late 80′s stadium rock and hair metal vintage. It has that late summer block party jam ambiance to it, which is a compliment by the way, given I’ve found certain block party jams to be monotonous and uninspired in my time.

Lyrically, I can admire Lambert and her co-writers for attempting to tackle a different extended metaphor and fitting it exclusively to song………..but it comes across as a bit distant. There’s no sense of character unraveled in this set of lyrics, no personal details or descriptions. And for the aforementioned reason regarding Lambert’s vocal style……….it makes this listen all the more frustrating. Because while “Revolution” succeeded in having this reflective quality to many of its songs, where Lambert would introspect to some extent what it is that makes her as cunning, unrefined and rebellious as she is………this recedes into that sort of song that I imagine some will still be able to relate to, but more just as a green screen canvas to put their own toxic relationships in perspective………..not to dig any deeper beneath the surface of HOW a relationship got to where it did.

All in all, I’d probably rate this a little higher than Kevin here. I’d say a B-, since this is still much more interesting than most else on the radio dial presently and also because I realize my expectations were sky high for “Four The Record” following “Revolution”, so rating it lower would probably just be my cognitive bias getting in the way. The production is decent, it has a nice groove, and though lyrically it isn’t that deep, at least it tries its hand at a metaphor that isn’t as cliched. Lambert’s vocals take a step back, however, and I’m praying this isn’t indicative of how the rest of “Four The Record” sounds.