Articles by Kevin John Coyne
Single Review: Danny Gokey, “I Will Not Say Goodbye”
There’s the core of a good song idea here. Really. And he’s singing from the heart, clearly addressing this song to his late wife. It’s hard not to feel guilty criticizing this record.
But I’m gonna have to do it anyway. If I didn’t already know Gokey’s back story, I’d think he was just trying to imitate Rascal Flatts. Listen to the chorus, which he sings like it’s a carbon copy of the verse from “What Matters Most.” In that hit, it was “I’m not a-fraid to cry, every now, and again, even though, with going on, with you gone, still upsets me.” In this song, it’s “I will laugh, I will cry, shake my fist, at the sky, I will not say goodbye.”
Single Review: Reba McEntire, “Turn On the Radio”
How to review this new Reba McEntire single?
I could…
A. Write something short and not particularly clever:
Turn off the radio!
B. Moan that this is a record beneath the talents of a future/should already be present Country Music Hall of Famer:
Why is the great voice that brought us “You Lie” and “Somebody Should Leave” singing this?
Single Review: Joe Nichols, “The Shape I’m In”
I remember thinking when I first heard Sara Evans sing “Cheatin'” that it was the best record Reba McEntire hadn’t recorded in a long time.
Listening to the new Joe Nichols single “The Shape I’m In”, I’m thinking the same thing about George Strait.
Perhaps it’s just because “The Breath You Take” is still a fresh disappointment in my mind, but I can’t help thinking Strait would’ve knocked “The Shape I’m In” out of the park.
That being said, Nichols does a good job himself, in a vocal performance that is so inspired by Strait it might as well be an homage.