Single Review: Blake Shelton, "Sure Be Cool If You Did"
Blake Shelton’s current hit takes a welcome break from the watery nineties rock of “Over” and “God Gave Me You,” instead going for a light R&B groove with a synthesized hand clap. (It’s anybody’s guess when we’ll see the return of the fiddler and steel guitarist who have been seemingly M.I.A. since circa 2009) To the single’s credit, this particular sonic backdrop affords some much-needed breathing room for Shelton’s vocals, the quality of which has generally remained consistent even when the song quality hasn’t.
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.” 
