Single Reviews
Single Review: Big & Rich, “Cheat on You”
Many moons ago, when Big & Rich seemed like the most promising and interesting duo to hit the genre in eons, they put out a song called “Holy Water.”
It was a powerful song with empathetic feminism, the sort of solidarity with women that you usually don’t hear from men in cowboy hats. It cut through their cartoonish persona and showed that they could be incisively insightful. This was no small feat given it was the follow-up to “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)”, which had established that persona in the first place.
Single Review: Jason Aldean, "1994"
Jason Aldean’s new single “1994” sounds like what you might get if you threw “Johnny Cash,” “She’s Country,” and “My Kinda Party” into a blender with a dash of Colt Ford, and added fourteen Joe Diffie namedrops. While the name of nineties country star Joe Diffie is rarely cited as often as the usual Cash, Haggard, Nelson, Jennings, or Jones, Aldean ostensibly seeks to balance things out by chanting “Joe, Joe, Joe Diffie” at the end of each chorus, while throwing in references to assorted Diffie hits such as “Pickup Man” and “Third Rock from the Sun.”
Single Review: Rhonda Vincent, "I'd Rather Hear I Don't Love You (Than Nothing At All)"
Written by Henry L. Carrigan, Jr. of Engine 145
From the moment Hunter Berry’s tearful-sounding fiddle plaintively whines the first four bars of Rhonda Vincent’s new single, we know we’re in for a sad country shuffle. In fact, the notes he strikes on the fiddle anticipate almost note-for-note Vincent’s emphatic, but mournful, tone in her first lines and the song’s chorus. Vincent’s soaring vocals, backed by those doleful fiddles and the pleading resophonic guitar of Brent Burke, deliver a sorrowful breakup song with a twist.
Single Review: Lady Antebellum, "Downtown"
Credit where credit is due: After a run of two full albums’ worth of singles that were each exponentially more tepid than the last, Lady Antebellum realized the urgent need for a course correction. “Downtown,” the lead single for the trio’s fourth album, may not be a return to the roots-rock sound of their promising debut, but it’s a definite, deliberate shift in style from the somnolent lite-AC pap that had become their signature. Lady A needed to do something different, and “Downtown” certainly is.
If a song has nothing to say beyond what’s said in its title phrase, what’s the point of writing the song in the first place?
Single Review: Edens Edge, “Swingin’ Door”
This finely crafted gem of a country song was co-written by Country Universe staff favorite Ashley Monroe, and was released as a single in 2005 by Australian country artist Catherine Britt, whose own version is well worth seeking out. The song was a highlight of the charming Edens Edge self-titled debut album released last summer, and now looks like it just might be one of the most enjoyable new singles with a prayer of radio airplay in 2013