Single Review: Kellie Pickler, “Best Days of Your Life”

Swedish pop duo Roxette used to throw out picks to the audience during their concerts.   Upon the picks,  these words were emblazoned: “Don’t Bore Us! Get to the Chorus!”

I couldn’t help but think of those words when listening to the new Kellie Pickler single.   The chorus is so strong that it kicks off the song, and each and every time it’s sung, it’s easy to think that you’re listening to a classic in the making.   We’re talking “This Kiss”-level catchiness.

But oh, how it all falls apart in the verses.  Pickler sounds strained, there’s no discernable melody and the lyrics are no more memorable than the music backing them up.  I wouldn’t be shocked if this ends up Pickler’s biggest hit to date, just because call-out research will play the insatiable hook, but that’s really all this single is: a great hook in search of a song to call home.

Written by Kellie Pickler and Taylor Swift

Grade: B-

Listen: Best Days of Your Life

Buy: Best Days of Your Life

9 Comments

  1. As someone else brought up in the review of the album, I think that stellar hook sort of inadvertently nods to the cadence of Wham!’s “Last Christmas,” though I wouldn’t quite call it a rip-off.

  2. I chuckled outloud when I read that Kellie and Taylor wrote the song together. They’re THAT good friends, eh?

    I don’t analyze a song that deeply. It does have a very catchy chorus that I enjoyed the first time I heard it. I also heard a melody on the verses. In fact, I think it’s very rhythmic.

    The song obviously isn’t meant to be deep but it’s fun and catchy and good for radio.

  3. She is my Country Music Princess IDOL…walks into a room and it comes alive her pesonality comes thru..she and John Rich came from less than material blessings as children and now they are making up for the fruits of their labor…you two keep goin…have your best days while detroit is shuttin down but thanks to John it is being center of attention

  4. I heard this on the way to work this morning and was trying to figure out which teen queen had penned it, because it was so…well, painfully sophomoric came to mind.

    I’m not a Taylor Swift fan by any means (I think people overrate her because of her youth), but her other songs aren’t wince-inducingly insipid.

    This is one collaboration that didn’t pan out.

  5. Seven months later, that hook still gets in my head. It’s approaching “Hung Up” levels of brain penetration.

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