John Michael Montgomery
Album Review: Scotty McCreery, Clear as Day
Scotty McCreery
Clear as Day
In listening to American Idol winner Scotty McCreery’s debut album, it becomes all too clear that either McCreery is being carefully reared by the unabashedly commercial-minded execs of 19 Entertainment… or that he simply enjoys playing follow-the-leader. The former is most likely, but almost every track on Clear as Day sounds like an emulation of the style of one of country radio’s favorite hitmakers. We get to hear Scotty McCreery play Montgomery Gentry. We get to hear Scotty McCreery play Kenny Chesney. But there are precious few moments in which it sounds like Scotty McCreery is being Scotty McCreery.
Single Review: Scotty McCreery, “I Love You This Big”
Any review of this single anywhere is like begging for site traffic from impassioned fans/haters. I don’t do nearly enough favors for Country Universe most of the time, though – so allow me to greet you down on my knees, Scottyfolk.
A preface: I didn’t watch this past season of American Idol, so this single is basically my first exposure to its winner, and I feel no sour grapes that he beat out So-And-So or What’s-Her-Face, and I don’t care about his adorable TV backstory or any of that. The only metric I’m using is whether “I Love You This Big” sounds like something I’d want to hear on the radio between “Teenage Daughters” and “Amen.”
Single Review: Easton Corbin, “I Can’t Love You Back”
Any song that starts with a guitar melody so eerily reminiscent of Rosanne Cash’s “Blue Moon With Heartache” is going to reel me in right away. Throw in an understated production that recalls early Alan Jackson, and the fact that Corbin is an actual country singer instead of just a country personality, and things get even better.
The song is beautiful. Really, really beautiful. Like so many great country ballads, someone who’s been left alone because a relationship failed can relate to it just as well as someone who has been left alone because they’re a widow. On the verses, Corbin sounds so good that he could’ve sent this to radio in 1992 and stood tall among the Mark Chesnutts and Collin Rayes of that time.
