“When the Sun Goes Down”
Kenny Chesney
Written by Brett James
Radio & Records
#1 (6 weeks)
March 26 – April 30, 2004
Billboard
#1 (5 weeks)
April 3 – May 1, 2004
This is a straight from the factory, built for Kenny Chesney radio hit, and it is perfectly competent in its execution.
Beyond that, what is there to say? The island rhythms are comfortably familiar, Chesney’s delivery could be coming straight from his beach chair, and Uncle Kracker is…on the record. You can hear him clearly. He’s there.
It’s one of those records that works well to reinforce an artist’s brand, and it’s final, purest form will be as the soundtrack to a commercial for Club Med.
“When the Sun Goes Down” gets a B.
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The big elephant in the room with this song is the melody, specifically on “everything gets hotter when the sun goes down”
That sounds *very* similar to Uncle Kracker’s “Follow Me”, which wouldn’t be worth caring about if Uncle Kracker himself wasn’t on this track.
This is the quintessential song to play during a group outing at the beach. Pleasant, fun, and devoid of any lyrical depth. Does its job well, nothing more.
Kenny Chesney finds his voice and his vibe after a decade on the country charts. It was a victory only so far as he was such a directionless journeyman up to that point. As you said, there was nothing special about the lyrics or the performances, but that seemed to be a recurring theme for so many post-9/11 chart toppers. It was pleasant and mildly catchy Jimmy Buffett-derivative fare. But it also badly overstayed its welcome and vastly pushed the limits of its value….
This was partly a me problem. At the time, I was working at a newspaper in southwestern Minnesota and we had just gotten new landline phones with radios attached. I shared my small office with the editor who had the local country station playing all day, every day. The repetition of their playlist was excruciating and a handful of songs still trigger me two decades later, bringing back memories of that hamster wheel. “When the Sun Goes Down” was one of the worst offenders. I try not to hold it against the song but I heard more than a full lifetime’s worth in the few months where I worked with this editor. He was a solid coworker but when he moved on in the early summer of 2004, it was such a relief to be able to turn that damn phone radio off.
Grade: B-