Kyle’s Favorite Musical Artists of All-Time: Part 2 (#10-#1)

Many musical acts have come and gone over the years, but only a chosen few rise to the honor of being name-checked by a random blog on the Internet as the greatest of all time. We made it halfway through my Top Twenty list on Wednesday, so it’s time to finish off this feature, and this era of regular posting, with the best of the best. I present to you my Top Ten favorite musical artists of all-time.

#10: Garth Brooks

Which is worth more: Your legacy, or your principles? Brooks is a fascinating case study in this area, as his steadfast insistence on making people consume/buy his music through albums has caused his memory to fade a bit in comparison to his peers (as I mentioned in my “Rodeo Man” review: “George Strait and Alan Jackson are forever name-dropped in modern country songs, but how many times have you heard anyone mention Brooks?”). Further complicating this matter is the way Brooks was labeled as “the guy killing country music” back in the 90s thanks to his habit of fusing together elements of different genres in his songs (a label that gets more laughable every year, as genre-fusing has become the rule rather than exception).

It’s a shame, because all of these discussions obscure just how darn good an artist Brooks was in his heyday: He could sing any song you put in front of him and sing it well, and while the production might run the gamut from country to pop to rock to blues to old-school Western swing, he had this incredible everyman charisma that allowed him to sell his work to his audience no matter what it was. As antiquated as his album-only approach feels today, he wasn’t completely off-base with it: His albums tended to be pretty strong from start to finish, and more than just his radio singles deserved to be heard! He wasn’t afraid to tackle complicated or darker subjects, and even lightweight party songs would become singalongs or anthems in his hands.

Garth Brooks didn’t kill country music. He just killed the memory of Garth Brooks, and it’s a darn shame.

Need To Hear: Assuming you’ve already heard the big ones like “Friends In Low Places” and “Ain’t Goin’ Down (‘Til the Sun Comes Up),” I’ll make a pitch for “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old),” “The River,” and “Two Piña Coladas.”

#9: Grandpa Jones

My old friends still give me grief about how I declared Jones to be “hardcore” back in high school, but I stand by that statement today: If you distilled country music down to its rawest essence, I argue it would sound a lot like Jones’s simple, straightforward, banjo-dominated offerings.

I discovered Jones through an old record of my dad’s (and let’s be honest, a song like “Old Towzer” is irresistible to a kid), and fell in love with his unique vocal style and clawhammer banjo technique. His songs didn’t tend to be anything too deep (though there were exceptions, like “Dark As A Dungeon”), but there was an earnestness and an infectious joy to his performances that couldn’t help but make you smile. (Being firmly planted on the bluegrass side of country music meant that the arrangement pieces got a lot of room to show off as well, a part of music that I’ve always enjoyed but has been mostly excised in the streaming era.)

Jones might be remembered today as the comic relief from Hee Haw, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a great artist and musician in his own right.

Need To Hear: You have to hear “Old Towzer” at least once before you die, but I’d also recommend “Dark As A Dungeon,” “Night Train To Memphis,” “When All The Jones’ Get Together,” and “Daylight Savings Time.”

#8: Midland

Yeah, you probably knew these three were on this list somewhere. I first stumbled across them when a radio station in Texas played “Drinkin’ Problem” a few days before its official release date, and was impressed with their retro musical stylings and their solid vocal and harmony work. Their subject matter has trended towards the mainstream over time (lots of drinking and partying) as they tried to find a balance between their style and the mainstream meta, but they’ve managed to maintain their identity as a throwback band that dares to reach back beyond the neotraditional era that everyone (including me) gravitates towards.

I’m sure this is true for a lot of artists, but the magic of Midland often lies in their album cuts (On The Rocks may be my favorite album of the last ten years, so maybe Brooks was onto something after all?). Mark Wystrach is a excellent, emotive vocalist, but I’ve really enjoyed hearing Jess Carson and Cameron Duddy’s turns behind the mic as well, and the group’s vocal chemistry is absolutely fantastic. When they’re freed from the restrictions of the radio, they can talk more about life on the road, wax philosophically about life in general, and even bring back some long-forgotten tropes like trucking songs. They may have missed their window for superstardom when the genre head-faked towards traditional sounds in the mid-2010s and then pivoted hard back to the Metropolitan era, but they seem to be at their best when they have more creative autonomy, so perhaps getting shuffled off the radio might bring about their best work yet.

Need To Hear: “Drinkin’ Problem” and “Burn Out” are great, but for deep cuts, check out “Out Of Sight,” “Nothin’ New Under The Neon,” “Every Song’s A Drinkin’ Song,” and “Life Ain’t Fair.”

#7: Dierks Bentley

Another statement I’ve taken flak for is calling Bentley and Eric Church the heirs to country music’s Outlaw movement, but I stand by this assessment too: A fair bit of Bentley’s early work centered on the hard, rambling lifestyle of a music man and how this dynamic weighed on his life and relationships. I’m a big fan of his road-warrior era, but much like Rhett, Bentley has evolved over the years, and while he conceded a lot to the mainstream meta in the 2010s, he always managed to do a credible job on any song he delivered (even if, as I mentioned in my review of “Black,” having him cover some topics was “like using a shovel to eat cereal”). One consistent thread, however, was his appreciation for bluegrass music: He tended to include one such song on most of his albums, and even recorded an entire bluegrass back in 2010.

I don’t know if I’d call his voice anything super special, but his ability to deliver songs ranging from “Come A Little Closer” to “Living” to even “Drunk On A Plane” spoke to both his charisma and his vocal talent, and helped him survive a rough era in the genre that claimed the careers of many of his contemporaries. Here’s hoping he’s still got a few days left on the road before he calls it a career.

(…What do you mean, ‘what about the Hot Country Knights?’ That was Doug Douglason, not Bentley. They’re two very different people.)

Need To Hear: “What Was I Thinkin'” will always be my favorite, but take some time to hear “My Last Name,” “Settle For A Slowdown,” and “Living.”

#6: Alan Jackson

There’s really not much more I can say about one of the most revered artists in country music history, but I’ll try to do so anyway.

I think one of Jackson’s more underrated talents was his ability to take a cover song and really make it his own while also staying faithful to the original source material. (His Under The Influence album was absolutely fantastic, and he took Jim Ed Brown and Don Williams into the Top Ten decades after their original release—heck, “It Must Be Love” went to #1!). Not only could he sing your songs better than you could, he could take your signature shtick and simply do it better: Think “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” vs. Toby Keith’s “Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American)”, or “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” vs. Kenny Chesney’s entire discography.

With his easy, effortless delivery, a boatload of aw-shucks charm, strong songwriting chops, and several massive hits that will be inscribed on the next golden record NASA sends into space, Jackson’s inclusion on this list is as predictable as it is inarguable. The only question left is how he ended up outside the Top Five.

Need To Hear: “Midnight In Montgomery,” She’s Got The Rhythm (And I Got The Blues),” “Don’t Rock The Jukebox,” “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow,” “The Older I Get”

#5: Southern Rail

…I’m sorry, who?

Let me explain: Southern Rail is a bluegrass band founded by Jim Muller and Sharon Horovitch over forty years ago, and they’ve been a staple of the New England bluegrass scene for as long as I can remember. I first stumbled across the group in the late 2000s while scouring iTunes for a copy of a song my former bandmate was fond of playing, and they remain the only member of this list that I’ve ever seen perform live. (Live shows are generally too loud and chaotic for me, and I’ve actually passed up chances to see the top three acts on this list because of this.) I fell in love with their excellent vocal harmonies, superb instrumentals, and the great sense of humor they display during their shows. As a regional group, they tend to do a lot of covers of popular songs, but they’ve also got some great original tracks that stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the mainstream hits.

Their work can be hard to find at times (no joke, I once paid $50 for an out-of-print CD of theirs—it’s a long story), but it’s absolutely worth seeking out and hearing. This is bluegrass music at its finest.

Need To Hear: “Carolina Lightning,” “I Didn’t Ask,” “Friend Of Steel,” “Headin’ West,” “A Common Prayer”

#4: Dwight Yoakam

Yoakam’s secret to success was that there simply wasn’t anyone else like him on the radio. He was this weird combination of novelty and familiarity: There was the unique voice, the iconic guitar tones and technique of Pete Anderson, the raw, unpolished fiddles, and even Yoakam’s style choices (tight clothing, cowboy hat pulled so low that you never saw his eyes, etc.), but there was also the revival of the Bakersfield sound of Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, and the unheard-of volume of cover songs that he included as both radio singles and album cuts (his first two albums included tracks from Johnny Horton, Johnny Cash, Lefty Frizzell, Stonewall Jackson, and Elvis Presley, not to mention the zillions of artists who have done “Heartaches By The Number”).

It was an unorthodox combination of ideas, but it worked, drawing in audiences with his raw charisma, catchy sounds, and writing that would leave an impact regardless if it was a tragic romantic ballad or an ode to his Kentucky roots. It was the kind of music that even the non-country fans I knew could appreciate, and while he wasn’t technically a neotraditional artist, he made some of the best music of the neotraditional era.

Need To Hear: “A Thousand Miles From Nowhere,” “It Won’t Hurt,” and the entire If There Was A Way album.

#3: Brad Paisley

Despite what I just said about Yoakam, for many years when people told me that didn’t like or listen to country music, my response was “Let me tell you about this Paisley character…”

The best way that I could describe Paisley is that if you got yourself a mad scientist’s lab and tried to assemble the perfect country music singer, the result would have looked a lot like this. Paisley had it all: He had a great voice with solid range (especially in his upper register), a strong songwriting ability that could put a new spin on an old topic or come up with a new idea entirely, an abundance of humor and wit, and so much charisma that you couldn’t help but like the guy and engage with his stories…and oh yeah, he also happens to be the greatest guitarist in the history of history (his ear for overall production is also underrated).

I sometimes like to mention what I call the Rickey Henderson test: Henderson was a prolific base-stealer, and and when he got to first base, he inevitably stole second even though everyone in the building knew exactly what he was going to do. Thus, the test is “Can you find success even when the whole world knows what you’re doing and where you’re trying to go?” In Paisley’s case, the answer was usually yes: Songs like “I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin’ Song)” telegraphed their intentions from the start, and early albums followed a fairly-strict formula (always an instrumental, always a gospel song, etc.), and yet his works were excellent and well-regarded thanks to their unique perspective and flawless execution.

Paisley wasn’t perfect, of course, and his ideas sometimes blew up spectacularly in his face (“Accidental Racist,” anyone?), but I’ll at least give him credit for having the confidence to try new things and tackle subjects and ideas that other artists wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole (seriously, who would dare put out an album of mostly instrumentals these days?). He was an excellent artist with broad appeal, and I’ll always regard him as one of the best to ever step onto the stage.

Need To Hear: “Whiskey Lullaby,” “Celebrity,” “He Didn’t Have To Be,” “I’m Gonna Miss Her (The Fishing Song),” “Last Time For Everything”

#2: Clint Black

The #1 spot on this list was etched in stone a million years ago, but #2 has been a battle for some time, especially as Paisley’s stature grew in the 2000s and early 2010s while Black had mostly disappeared from the music scene. Was it time for the silver medal to change hands?

For most people, this would be an easy decision: Black was a member of the fabled Class of ’89 along with Jackson and Brooks, but his star had long since faded in comparison. For me, however, Black’s work was a revelation when I discovered it back in the day: His ability to turn a phrase was unmatched among his peers, and as someone who tends to prioritize writing when judging songs, his songs always gave me a lot to ponder over. The sound was fairly standard for its time and I wouldn’t call his voice super unique, but his harmonica work helped him stand out a little musically, and he could deliver a tender ballad, philosophize on a random topic, or even put some attitude behind his delivery will equal aplomb. It was mostly his feats of prose that caught my attention (“Tuckered Out” will always be a personal favorite—how the heck did he fit so many artist names in there and still craft a song that wasn’t complete nonsense?).

I tend to look more favorably on an artist’s early-career work, but it’s Black’s mid-career work that stands out most in my mind (I’d stack No Time To Kill, One Emotion, and Nothin’ But The Taillights up against anyone in the business), and when I look for an album to revisit, I still seem to favor Black’s work by a slight hair over Paisley’s. He’s unofficially been #2 in my mind for this long, so we might as well make it official today.

Need To Hear: The Time Trilogy (“Killin’ Time,” “No Time To Kill,” “Spend My Time”), “Nobody’s Home,” “Life Gets Away,” “Nothin’ But The Taillights”

#1: Randy Travis

The Book of Kyle states that Brad Paisley is the greatest guitar player of all-time, and that Clint Black is the greatest songwriter of all-time.

Randy Travis is the greatest. Period. Full stop. End of story.

I’ve already talked at length about my Travis fandom, so I’ll just give you the CliffsNotes version this time around: His production always fit both the mood and the era and never got in the way of the writing, the stories were interesting, engaging, and always worth hearing, and Travis not only has the greatest voice that you will ever hear in your life, but it was incredibly expressive and emotive, and really let the listener feel the emotions of the narrator. From Randy Ray to the Influence era, the man was the best to ever step behind the microphone, and the day I die, he had better be the only artist they play on the jukebox.

Need To Hear: All the songs! But if you’re pressed for time, my Fine Fifteen list from The Musical Divide is a great place to start.

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So that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it, at least for now. The music never stops, however, and I’m curious to see who rises up from the radio in the future and makes their case for a spot on this list. I suppose only time who tell.

…Speaking of which, I can hear the orchestra starting to play me off, so I guess that’s my time, folks. Thanks for coming out to the Korner for all these years—you’ve been a wonderful audience. For the time being you can find me aiming umbrellas at people on YouTube, but something tells me I’ll still have a few things to post here from time to time. For now, however, I hope we’ll meet again somewhere down the line, and I wish you all well in your future endeavors.

This is Kyle, signing off.

Kyle’s Favorite Musical Artists of All-Time: Part 1 (#11-20)

Who are the greatest musical acts of all-time?

It’s a tough question with a lot of potential options (and metrics) to choose from, and if you ask 100 different people, you’ll probably get 100 different answers. Our musical preferences also tend to form early in our lives, so our lists often reflect the era that we grew up in, and thus discussions like this are limited by our lack or perspective. (This applies to both older and newer works: I have no idea what it was like living through the Elvis or Beatles era, I’ve never heard an Olivia Rodrigo song, and the closest I’ve come to hearing Billie EIlish is an Animal Crossing parody of “Bad Guy.”) It’s a pointless question with no right answer, and unless you’re looking to start a flame war online, there’s no point in partaking.

Still, it can be fascinating to look back on your musical history and try to deduce why it ended up the way it did. What was it about certain artists that appealed to you? How do you weigh different criteria in your selection process? How have your opinions on certain acts shifted over time? Is it possible to come up with a grand unified theory of your audio tastes? Since I’ve already made a list like this on the gaming side, I decided that this would be a fun exercise to close out this chapter of the blog. (Sadly, I don’t have an old list from the previous millennium for comparison, but given how many of the artists on this list are drawn from that era, it would probably look pretty similar to this one.)

Without further ado, let’s make like Bob Kingsley and start counting them down!

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Honorable Mention: Trace Adkins

Honorable Mention: Patty Loveless

Honorable Mention: Kathy Mattea

Honorable Mention: Hank Snow

Honorable Mention: Clay Walker

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#20: Thomas Rhett

Believe it or not, my first encounter with Rhett was through a savage takedown of “Crash And Burn” by that other Kyle over at Saving Country Music. I was so intrigued to see any song generate that kind of reaction that I just had to hear it, and against all odds I found the song quite enjoyable, even if the critic Kyle of today can see its glaring flaws from space (for example, it’s as bad a clash between the sound and the subject matter as you’ll ever find). I took a chance on Tangled Up despite Mark Grondin’s warnings (and truthfully I can see where he was coming from too), and again I mostly enjoyed what I heard.

Now, you could tell a very similar story about my initial run-in with Cole Swindell, and he didn’t end up anywhere near this list. So what caused Rhett to stand out from his many Metro-Bro peers? Honestly, I think it’s because he managed to escape the Bro-Country vortex and actually mature as an artist on Life Changes, and even as he started to sound a bit more generic and buzzword-heavy on later radio single, and even his booze-soaked collabs like “Beer Can’t Fix” kinda-sorta worked thanks to his unexpected charm and charisma. Rhett is one of the few artists that has consistently earned decent marks in reviews on the blog, and he deserves a spot on this list.

Need To Hear: “Marry Me,” “Die A Happy Man,” “Beer With Jesus”

#19: Tracy Lawrence

As a huge fan of the neotraditional sound of the late 80s and early 90s, there are a lot of hat acts from the era that were considered for this list, so what elevates Lawrence over contemporaries like Walker, Adkins, and Mark Chesnutt? The production choices and subject matter were all fairly similar, so what was the differentiating factor? It’s true that Lawrence had one of the more unique voices of the era, but honestly, it was the number of singles that have been lodged in my head for decades afterwards, popping up when you least expect it to remind you just how good he was. There was the unmistakable fiddle opener of “I See It Now,” the clockwork drum and unvarnished discussion of passing time in “Time Marches On,” the pain behind the hard-won wisdom of “Lessons Learned”…there was just something about Lawrence’s performances that really left an impression on the listener, and it always felt like he had something important to say. I feel like Lawrence, much like Walker, is one of the more-underrated vocalists from this era, but he’ll always hold a special place in my heart…

…and my Miitopia party.

Need To Hear: The three mentioned above are a good starting point, along with “Runnin’ Behind.”

#18: Alabama

There isn’t a whole lot that I can say about Alabama that I haven’t already said. This was a flexible group the could pivot from a Skynyrd-esque sound to the Urban Cowboy movement to the neotraditional 90s, and yet could sound both credible and genuine in any trend they jumped on. Their most-iconic works tends to be their earliest ones, but they still dropped some real gems in the 90s as well, managing to stand out even in the face of rising competition. Much like with Lawrence, they’ve got a bucket full of singles that have taken up permanent residence in my mind, and for as much as I enjoy the bands that followed them, none of them have the body of work (in both quality and quantity) to stand up to this group.

Need To Hear: “40 Hour Week (For A Livin’),” “Why Baby Why,” “Jukebox In My Mind,” “Tennessee River”

#17: Tom T. Hall

If you want your music to tell a story, you can’t do any better than “The Storyteller” himself, right? Hall wasn’t the most talented vocalist and his production could feel pretty basic at times, but his gift was to be able to take the most ordinary/mundane of actions and turn them into a song that the audience couldn’t help but get invested in. He could hit you with a moving, thoughtful tale like “(Old Dogs, Children, and) Watermelon Wine,” turn around and drop a silly song like “Sneaky Snake,” and then turn around again and hit you with a rousing gospel number like “Me And Jesus.” He was a keen observer of life who felt relatable no matter what he was talking about, coming across like an old friend and providing a comforting presence for those who heard him. (Also, when someone’s work can inspire a work of My Little Pony fanfiction, they deserve a spot on this list, no questions asked.)

Need To Hear: “The Year The Clayton Delaney Died,” “A Week In A County Jail,” “Homecoming”

#16: Brooks & Dunn

Look, if you’re a fan of 90s neotraditional country, you’re probably going to have this pair somewhere on your favorites list. I know their hard-charging, party-hardy work gets more attention these days (they’ve been labeled a pre-cursor to the Bro-Country era), but they could sing the heck out of a sad song back in the day as well (“She Used To Be Mine,” “That Ain’t No Way To Go,” etc.), and while Dunn was an otherwordly vocal talent, contrary to popular opinion I think that Kix Brooks was a pretty darned good singer in his own right (it’s like people have forgotten that “Rock My World (Little Country Girl)” exists). B&D dropped some serious bangers on the charts for over a decade, and as one of the standard-bearers for a golden era in country music, you could do a lot worse.

Need To Hear: The three previously-mentioned songs are great, plus “Hard Workin’ Man.” “Neon Moon” is as good as it is overplayed, but for an underrated deep cut, try “South Of Santa Fe.”

#15: Josh Turner

I can tell you exactly where I was when I first heard Turner’s voice: CMT had some sort of weird feature at the time that let you preview/stream albums from featured artists, and the moment he started talking about a “Long Black Train,” I thought the heir to Randy Travis had finally been found. While that was certainly true from a vocal perspective (great deep voices are few and far between, and present artists with great lower ranges seem to be continually discouraged from using them), Turner never found the traction that Travis did, and after MCA sidelined him for several years in the mid-2010s, he basically disappeared from the mainstream scene and seems to have been mostly forgotten.

While I tend to have a contrarian view of Turner’s work (I really didn’t like his triple-platinum disc Your Man, while Everything Is Fine only went gold despite being an unquestionably-perfect album), I consider him a generational talent that unfortunately got the business end of the music business, and thus an automatic inclusion on a list like this.

Need To Hear: “She’ll Go On You,” “Lay Low,” “Long Black Train,” and pretty much everything on Everything Is Fine.

#14: Suzy Bogguss

Sadly, Bogguss ended up as the only female member on my favorite artist list, an indictment of both me as a listener and of the genre as a whole (the 1990s seemed to feature more female artists on the radio than usual, but it was the exception rather than the rule). It’s hard to say why Bogguss is here over great artists like Loveless and Mattea, but after going back through her singles, they tended to feel more substantive and thought-provoking than her contemporaries: The complex relationship of “Aces,” the road-trip analogy of “Souvenirs,” the mixed emotions from everyone around leaving home of “Letting Go,” and of course the expectations vs. the realities of growing old in “Hey Cinderella”. Let’s not sell her short as a vocalist either: She always brought a very welcoming tone to her performances, and she could make a heartfelt observation or a firm declaration with equal skill.

I think this is a similar situation to Lawrence: There were lots of people in this lane back in the day, so it was the staying power of the songs and the voice over time that really made the difference. For my money, Bogguss is one of the best to ever step behind the mic.

Need To Hear: Go to Wikipedia, write down every single Bogguss released from 1991 to 1993, and then listen to them all…and then listen to “Hey Cinderella” a few more times.

#13: “Weird Al” Yankovic

If you’re not a country artist, then you had to be really good to get me to notice you, because back in the day I strayed from the Nashville sound on very few occasions (though I will admit to being enthralled by MC Hammer when he burst onto the scene back in the day). Yankovic, however, had a leg up on his competition: Not only did his tracks feature excellent production (he and his team have a real knack for recreating the sound of other artists, and of course the polkas were straight fire), but his parodies were exactly the kind of silly, kid-friendly material that could a) hook a younger demographic and b) convince parents that it was safe to let the kids listen to him. His nasally voice could also be humorous in itself, but he also had an incredible amount of range that could let him handle any song you tossed at him.

The man set a standard that all parodies from now until the end of time will have to meet, and in the midst of country music’s current plagiarism “interpolation” trend, my position is that if you’re going to copy a track, if you ain’t got “Weird Al” behind the mic, I don’t wanna hear it.

Need To Hear: “It’s All About The Pentiums,” “Eat It,” “I Lost On Jeopardy”

#12: George Strait

The problem with Strait is twofold: His discography is so massive that it can be overwhelming and sometimes hard to pick out individual tracks, and he ran the risk of sounding generic simply because after several decades of being an omnipresent force in Nashville, he was basically the default voice of the genre!

So let’s cut through the noise and ask ourselves: What made King George the rightful ruler of country music? Well, his ‘default’ voice was flexible enough to handle anything from “Carrying Your Love With Me” to “The Fireman.” His charm and charisma allowed him to perform death-defying feats that no other artist would attempt: He could deliver “Love Without End, Amen” without sounding too cheesy, deliver “The Chair” without sounding too sleazy, deliver “All My Ex’s Live In Texas” without sounding too stiff, and deliver “Here For A Good Time” without sounding like too much like a dudebro. His devotion to the classic fiddle-and-steel sound gave him strong roots in traditional country, and yet even as the decades passed, his sound never felt out-to-step with the mainstream.

Strait was so good that people were singing tribute songs about him back in the early 90s, and much like Brooks & Dunn, if you lived through the neotraditional era of country music, he’s basically guaranteed to be on your list of favorites.

Need To Hear: Everything I mentioned above is worth checking out, but some other personal favorites are “Amarillo By Morning,” “I Just Wanna Dance With You,” and “Troubadour.”

#11: Easton Corbin

Much like Turner, Corbin burst onto the scene as “the next George Strait,” but couldn’t find enough consistent success to leave up to the hype. Still, I feel like many of the same superlatives that I mentioned with Strait apply here too. I mean, you want flexibility? This dude put out two stone-cold country albums before Bro-Country laid waste to the genre, and he simply turned around and put out the greatest (and perhaps the only good) Bro-Country album ever made in It’s About To Get Real…and then turned around again and dropped “A Girl Like You,” flipping around all the Bro clichés and doing a nice job bringing together real and synthetic instrumentation. You wanna talk charm and charisma? Even setting aside making Bro-Country palatable, the man took “All Over The Road,” a song centered around distracted driving, and made it halfway tolerable, and later sang a song from the perspective of a dog and made it feel heartfelt instead of sickeningly sweet. Heck, the man had what was a random album cut at the time remixed into an international hit in 2014!

Imagine, if you will, an alternate timeline in which Florida Georgia Line and Bro-Country never took off, and country music in the 2010s was instead dominated by artists like Turner and Corbin. …Then again, don’t imagine it; it’s a bit too painful to think that could have been an option.

Need To Hear: “Roll With It,” “I Can’t Love You Back,” “Are You With Me,” “A Girl Like You”

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Ten down, ten to go (…okay, nine; y’all know who’s locked in at #1). So who managed to grab a spot in the top ten? Tune in Friday to find out!

Song Reviews: The Last Roundup (Keith Urban, Dylan Marlowe & Dylan Scott, HunterGirl, Tigirlily Gold)

All right folks, I guess we’d better do one more for the road.

I’m actually pretty well caught up on the Mediabase Top 50 right now, but if we’re not going to be doing any song reviews for the foreseeable future, we’d better cover as much ground as we can before we turn the lights out. So who are the lucky acts that get to face my cynical judgement one final time?

Keith Urban, “Messed Up As Me”

There are some artists that I’m going to miss talking about…and Urban is not one of them.

This one doesn’t have the anger of a standard Ex-Boyfriend track, but it concocts the same sort of delusional fantasy that you often find in them: The narrator is “blue…dark blue” after a recent breakup, and what starts as a hope that “maybe you’d be as messed up as me” starts becoming a bit more declarative (and obnoxious), saying that they’re putting up a strong front but “you’re fallin’ to pieces on the inside” and that “the truth is nobody leaves your head and your heart, and your bed and your sheets as messed up as me.” It’s a flimsy, baseless claim that makes the narrator seem petty and small, and really doesn’t entice the listener to care about the speaker or sympathize with their plight. The bland, flavorless production doesn’t help matters either: It’s driven by a basic acoustic guitar, some lifeless electric axes, and a programmed beat that’s forced to provide whatever energy the track has all by itself. The resulting atmosphere is…well, it isn’t, to be honest: It’s mildly dark thanks to the minor chords, but the neutral instrument tones and synthetic percussion give the song a chilly vibe that’s devoid of any real emotion, and it repels the audience more than it draws them in. Urban’s performance is no better: He doesn’t sound all that depressed as he delivers his lines (and the harmony work on the verses makes him sound like a robot), and his weak attempt to bring any sort of feeling to the performance boils down to one loud inhalation before the last chorus. If I know me, there’s a good chance that I return to the blogosphere at some point, but you can add Urban’s name to the list of artists that I really hope have retired and left before I get back.

Rating: 4/10. Hard pass.

Dylan Marlowe & Dylan Scott, “Boys Back Home”

Are you #$%@& serious? Is Nashville really going to stick me with a generic Bro-Country retread for my last review session?

Marlowe is a Georgia native and yet another creation of TikTok who turned a massive following on the platform into a deal with Sony Music Nashville early in 2023. (I don’t consider TikTok the national security threat that some folks in D.C. do, but if banning it would force Nashville to do more due diligence in finding new acts to break, I might actually support that.) The lyrics here are so generic that I’m surprised that ChatGPT didn’t get a writing credit: The small towns, the Friday nights, the dirt roads, the dust clouds, the truck circles, the bonfires, the random clothing brand name-drop…heck, it’s even got some awkward phrases that no human would ever think to write (“dirt road beers” sound kind of nasty, and has anyone in the history of history used the phrase “farm fire” before?). The production is a cheap knockoff of Florida Georgia’s “Cruise,” with its deliberate tempo, in-your-face electric guitars, mix of real and synthetic production, and even the token instrument in the background (it’s a dobro instead of a banjo this time, but it plays the exact same role). Marlowe himself turns in an aggressively replaceable performance that fails to put the listener in a party mood, and Scott’s presence here is a complete mystery (he adds nothing to the song, his voice is trapped in his less-compelling upper range and makes him sound like Brett Eldredge with a head cold…and he’s supposed to be the guy supplying the star power?! What, was Tucker Beathard unavailable?). The leering and objectification of 2012 have been removed, but otherwise this is a bad copy of a bad trend that was stale eight years ago, and it reeks of laziness and unoriginality. With any luck, this is the last time I’ll ever have to deal with these Dylans.

Rating: 3/10. Get that garbage outta here!

HunterGirl, “Ain’t About You”

Nice try HunterGirl, but my mind is made up.

Hunter Wolkonowski, known professionally as HunterGirl, is a Tennessee native who turned a runner-up finish on American Idol into a record deal with 19 Recordings/BMG, but really hasn’t made any noise on the radio until now. “Ain’t About You” is an interesting tale that’s supposed to motivate you to keep pursuing your dreams even when you think they will never come true, and it does make a good point about not comparing yourself to other who get their lucky break when you’re still waiting for your chance (and it deserves props for calling for a space where girls can see their inner beauty reflected and boys can show emotion). However, its primary point, as the hook declares, is that maybe “it ain’t about you”: Someone somewhere might need what you have to offer, and that justifies the whole struggle. I disagree 100%: At the end of the day, you should do what makes you happy and fulfilled, and while filling someone else’s cup is admirable, making yourself and your life miserable in the process is neither ideal nor sustainable. (This is part of the reason I’m dropping my regular schedule here: Other people may love what you do, but if you don’t love what you do, it’s time to move on.)

All that said, I definitely hear some potential in this performance. I like the simple acoustic foundation that conveys a sense of seriousness about the topic, and how the mix starts with a softer touch (especially on the percussion side) and slowly builds momentum as the song progresses. HunterGirl does a nice job in the narrator’s role, and not only seems genuinely concerned that you’ll give up too soon and that you should just keep pushing towards your goals, but also has the charisma to kinda-sorta make someone (but not me) think it’s a good idea too. For all my objections to the song itself, I think HunterGirl has the power to make her own dreams come true, as long as she can find some stronger material.

Rating: 6/10. Give it a spin or two to see what you think.

Tigirlily Gold, “I Tried A Ring On”

This is what I wanted the Ex-Boyfriend/Ex-Girlfriend trend to be.

I really wasn’t impressed with “Shoot Tequila” when it dropped last year, but this song is a much better vehicle for the talent of the Slaubaugh sisters. Yes, it’s another love-gone-wrong song, but instead of feeling angry or depressed, the narrator here takes a hard, honest look at what happened, deducing that when “I tried a ring on,” they got swept up in the emotion and pageantry of being married and overlooked the fact that the relationship wasn’t really built to last. There’s no anger towards the partner or wallowing in sorrow—the speaker is simply annoyed that they let their heart overrule their head and got carried away by an idea that wasn’t grounded in reality.

Lead singer Kendra Slaubaugh takes a very neutral-but-cerebral approach to the song, and really gives you the sense that the narrator has grown from this experience and will be more careful/thoughtful the next time they find themselves in this situation. (I said “Krista Slaubaugh’s harmony work is okay and the sisters have some decent vocal chemistry” in the last review, and that’s how I feel about this track too: The voices blend together okay, but it’s not an irreplaceable performance.) The production here takes an surprising-but-effective approach to the subject: Despite the negative outcome, the instrument tones lean range from fairly bright (especially the mandolin) to pretty neutral (the acoustic and electric guitars), and there’s a spacious quality to the sound that gives the song a surprisingly spiritual feel, while the lower volume keeps the focus on the lyrics and invites the listener to reflect on what’s being discussed.

Throw in the helpful takeaway message that a flight of passion does not a relationship make, and the fact that society provides a lot of incorrect messaging to women that marriage is a culmination of a journey rather than the start of one (and thus is actually a decision that shouldn’t be rushed into), and this might actually be the best song I’ve heard from country music all year. It stands out from its competition in all the best ways, and feels like a fitting way to close out this era of music reviews.

Rating: 8/10. Might as well save the best for last.

It’s Time.

The white flag is in the air, and it’s not sponsored by Credit One Bank. It’s officially last call here at Kyle’s Korner. After March 15th, I will be stepping away from my regular posting schedule.

I’ve been thinking and talking about this moment for years now, so what’s different about today than before? In truth, there were a number of factors that went into this decision:

• I mentioned in my last state of the blog address that despite a more-purposeful foray onto YouTube, the blog seemed to have found a good balance between the written and visual formats. There was one line in the post, however, that turned out to be the blog’s undoing:

“What this all boils down to is that the state of the blog is perhaps the strongest it’s ever been going into a new year of operation. Yes, YouTube (and my recent moves into streaming) is the more exciting format right now, but this outlet still fills a personal need to keep putting words on a page, and what it’s become still means something me.” (emphasis added)

Fast forward a couple of months, and streaming has become my primary method of content creation and thrown my entire schedule into chaos. Videos have been almost completely eradicated from the channel, and I’ve been forced to draw a hard line between my unprofitable online work and my real job (which is probably a healthy choice; working weekdays and weekends got old a long time ago).

The blog’s regular schedule helped it fend off this challenger for a few months (“we post three days a week, and that’s non-negotiable, darn it!”), but with video ideas starting to pile up, it’s clear that I was trying to fit ten gallons of liquid into a five-gallon bucket, and something needed to be thrown overboard.

• So why is the blog the thing that’s getting the ax? To be honest, I’ve realized that my music fandom is following the same arc as my My Little Pony fandom did back in 2015, and that the blog has morphed from a passion project to one mostly driven by duty. True story: I bought Kelsea Ballerini’s SUBJECT TO CHANGE and Tom T. Hall’s Greatest Hits late in 2022, and then literally didn’t buy a single track for over a year, finally breaking the streak with Drake Milligan’s Dallas/Fort Worth and Dierks Bentley’s Gravel & Gold just before the start of 2024.

Don’t get me wrong: I still love music and will always be a country music fan, but I’ve found that music no longer permeates my days the way that it used to. Where once I would always have a stereo within arm’s reach and would fake my way through work by writing blog posts, these days I pretty much only listen to tracks when I’m reviewing them, and said reviews are getting pushed later and later in the day because it’s the only free time I have to write them (hey, it’s still a Wednesday post, even if it’s posted at 11:58 PM!). I just don’t find myself exploring the audio space like I used to, and when I do, it’s more often than not just extended video game themes that I can half-listen to while doing other work.

Back in 2015, as I recognized that my love of all things Fluttershy was starting to wane, I started writing An Inkling of Friendship as an attempt to revive my passion for something by blending it with another (in this case, Splatoon). It made the exercise fun, but it didn’t bring back the old pony magic, and a year later I made the tough decision to pull the plug on the story and step away from fanfiction to start this blog. This year, it hit me that the same thing was happening: Music reviews have increasingly become a chore, and the amount of gaming content and other random thinkpieces has been increasing as a way to work around my frustration and still meet my deadlines. It was déjà vu all over again, and I decided it was time to make another tough call.

• Of course, the state of country music (especially over the last few years) has not helped matters any. You’ve all seen how review scores have trended around here by now:

The problem now is that all the indicators are pointing towards a continuation (and perhaps worsening) of this trend:

• A lack of investment in artists, musicians, and songwriters leads to a severe lack of variety in the output: When the same ten writers are writing every song and the same ten studio players are playing on every song, it’s no wonder that every radio release seems to sound the same.
• A desire to make things sound familiar while still maximizing profits is leading to blatant ripoff tracks that make a mockery of the original track while cutting in on its revenue stream.
• The collective souring of the national mood and the delaying of traditional adulthood markers (long-lasting relationships, home ownership, etc.) has turned much of country music into sleazy hookup and angry breakup tracks, all with heavy doses of nihilism and alcohol to try to avoid looking at the world that’s burning around us.
• Finally, the sudden breakthrough of country music into the larger musical discussion and the success of some of the genre’s worst offenders (cough Morgan Wallen cough) ensures that Music Row will likely double down on everything I’ve grown to despise about this genre for years to come.

In other words, if I’m unhappy with the state of the genre now, the chances of things being better in 2025 or 2026 seem remote. Perhaps it’s time to cut bait and quit while I’m behind.

• There’s another thing that isn’t as good as it once was, and that’s the guy I see in the mirror every day. One of the weird things about covering the music industry (or really any entertainment space) is that the people you cover never seem to age, but you certainly do. (The same is true with some video game franchises: Mario’s been around for 40+ years, but he still looks at good as he did in the 1980s! I need to find out what his skincare routine is…). It was during the Bro-Country era when it first dawned on me that the radio no longer reflected my experiences or outlook, and that chasm has only grown in the years since. It’s become crystal clear that what I want out of a song isn’t what most people want, and I thus I don’t feel like I’m contributing to the larger musical discussion anymore.

I’ve made a lot of self-deprecating jokes about my age on the blog, but it’s time to admit that they’re not that funny anymore. It’s time for me to step aside and let some new voices be heard, voices with a better understanding of modern music, and give them the space to steer the musical conversation that will shape their generation. Maybe it will be on TikTok or YouTube rather than on a blog, but those voices are out there, and they deserve your attention. (And hey, if you’ve been thinking about adding your own voice to the conversation, there’s no better time than the present!)

There’s another side to the issue of time marching on: It’s been said that “with great power comes great responsibility,” but responsibility can also come if you spend too long in one place, even if that “place” is Earth. Throughout my life, I’ve made it a point to avoid any sort of important tasks or shoulder any meaningful responsibility, because I simply don’t want to deal with the hassle that such things entail. Eventually, however, people around you start thinking “Hey, you’ve been around a while, so you must know what you’re doing!” and suddenly you get stuck with all the duties that you’ve tried so hard to avoid all this time.* I’ve hid from actual adulthood longer than most people, but I’m afraid it’s finally caught up to me, and it’s one more non-negotiable demand on your time that needs to be considered.

*There’s a flip side to this as well: Sometimes you take responsibility for something because you’re sick and tired of seeing what you want to happen not happen. The longer you watch people flail and fail at something, the more you start to think “#$%& it: If you want something done right, do it yourself.” This is why there’s a non-zero chance I run for Congress within the next decade or so…

• I’d be lying if I said recent events hadn’t shifted my thinking on this subject recently. 2024 has thus far been a year of transition, with a number of high profile individuals, some of which I’ve followed for many years myself, announcing that they would be stepping back and pursuing other adventures in the coming year. For example:
  • John Michael Montgomery has declared that this will be last year of touring.
  • Jason Kelce, now with a Super Bowl ring and a popular podcast to his name, announced that his football career is history.
  • Matthew Patrick, the founder and longtime host of Game Theory, shook the Internet to its core when he announced that he was stepping away from hosting duties back in January.

Maybe this is just part of getting old too, but as someone who remembers Patrick’s early work and when Montgomery’s “Life’s A Dance” was on the radio, these events lingered in my mind a lot longer than I expected. MatPat’s thoughts on the matter in particular struck a chord with me: He talked about the legacy of his channel and how you could either walk away at the height of your powers or just keep going until nobody cared about what you were doing anymore, not even you. It reminded me of a quote (that I can’t find anywhere but I think was from a baseball player from a while back) which went something like “Great players retire. Bad players get released.”

Much the The Game Theorists, by the numbers 2023 was the best year ever at Kyle’s Korner. The increased digital presence of country fans that powered artists like Wallen and Luke Combs to the top of the Hot 100 was reflected here as well, and we’ve reached heights that I never dreamed possible when I started this whole thing back in 2016. (That hard decision to walk away from Fimfiction? It turned out to be the right one.) I’m extremely proud of what we’ve done here on the blog, and while it’s sad to see it end, I can step away on my own terms knowing that its legacy will endure.

MatPat also mentioned in a later video about how the people around him are getting older and that he wanted to spend more time with them, and that resonated with me as well. I’ve become an uncle four times over since I first started writing here, and my parents have aged to the point where the traditional care dynamic has flipped (I’m worrying far more about their future than they are about mine). Time is a finite resource, and as Toby Keith showed us earlier this year, you don’t get to decide when the hourglass runs out of sand. I’d like to spend more time going forward with people I care about instead of writing long-winded rants about Blake Shelton for a change.

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In preparing for this moment, I realized one significant place where MatPat and Zack Kephart succeeded and I failed miserably: As much as I like the alliteration of “Kyle’s Korner,” tying the branding of this site to my name means that one can’t really exist without the other—I can’t have a Korner if I’m not around to stand on it! That said, I’ve only committed to stepping away from my current schedule, so I may still have some things to say here from time to time (I hope you’re still a fan of Splatoon patch note analyses!). Blog posts are still a lot quicker to put together than videos, so if something needs to be said in a timely manner, this would be the obvious place to do it. (I’ve also never truly been able to stay away from writing for too long, so if you told me that I will make a triumphant return here in 2028 or something, I’d believe you.)

I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished here at Kyle’s Korner, and I want to thank each and every one of you for stopping by and listening to the ramblings of a man who still believes that Midland was the peak of country music in the last ten years. I’ve got one more week around here, and I’ve got one more feature that I’d like to do before I go. Randy Travis is obviously on my Mount Rushmore of country artists, but who else has their likeness carved in the imaginary granite of my mind? I’d say it’s long past time for me to answer that question.

Unicorn Overlord: Early Impressions

Grids? We don’t need no stinkin’ grids!

I’ve gained notoriety on the Interwebz for other genres and franchises (Splatoon, Mario, etc.), but as longtime blog-watchers can attest, my true gaming love is RPGs, and lately it’s been tactical RPGs that have caught my eye (see: Triangle Strategy, Mario + Rabbids). As someone who is not a terribly fast thinker, however, I generally prefer turn-based combat, so I can take my time strategizing and know that nothing happens until I say it does. However, a franchise that caught my eye back in the day was Ogre Battle, a real-time strategy game where units would fan out over a large area with the goal of capturing the enemy stronghold. Battles were automated and different character classes had specific attacks (although they could differ based on whether they were on the front or back line), and there were a bunch of interesting characters that you could recruit to your army. It was a ton of fun back in the day (even if I was less enthused with its N64 sequel), and when I heard that Atlus and Vanillaware were publishing a similar game for the Switch and had a demo available, I had to jump in and see just how the old mechanics translated to the modern era. Triangle Strategy taught me never to judge a game by its name, so as weird as Unicorn Overlord sounded, if the gameplay behind the name was solid, nothing else mattered.

So did the game live up to its spiritual predecessors? Absolutely, at least in the short term (though some questions remain about the game’s balance going forward). The gameplay was crisp, the battles were fun, and the story was engaging and threw in some unexpected twists to spice up a stock formula. I really enjoyed my time with Unicorn Overlord, and I’m excited to see more of it when the full game arrives later this week.

The first thing you’ll notice is that the game looks gorgeous. The anime style of the cutscenes and the character renderings are excellent, the combat animations are fluid and dramatic, and the slightly-pixelated 3D overworld calls to mind Square’s recent HD-2D titles like Triangle Strategy and the Octopath Traveler series (although the scenes aren’t quite as grandiose at the OT backgrounds). I haven’t progressed far enough in the game to see how varied the landscapes get, but I’m very encouraged by what I’ve seen thus far. Much like Triangle Strategy, there are quite a few cutscenes that you’ll need to sit through, but they feature some stellar voice acting and never detract from the overall experience of the game.

In terms of the story, you play as the heir to a fallen kingdom in a world dominated by a evil traitor who conquered the entire continent, and your job is to build the resistance and take back what’s rightfully yours. Sure, it’s not the most novel concept in the universe, but I like the way the story opens with the reveal of a magical plot device that defeats the mind control that much of the world has fallen under (thus providing a reasonable justification for the events of the past), and you latch onto the characters quickly enough that a surprise abduction of one of them early in the game made me irrationally annoyed and moved me to squash the bad guys extra flat in subsequent battles. The world is well-crafted, the plot is sufficiently motivated, and the people you get to control are worth fighting both with and for (more on them later).

If you’re familiar with the Ogre Battle, battles here follow a familiar formula: You can move freely around a map in any direction you want (the early maps tend to be pretty small, but I expect that to change as the game continues), defeat enemy units in pitched automatic battles, liberate towns and claim other strategic vantage points, and eventually defeat a boss and conquer their stronghold. Looking back at Ogre Battle, there are several quality-of-life changes in Unicorn Overlord that make a huge difference: For example, units tend to move faster while traversing the map to minimize the wait times between action sequences, and the game seems to auto-pause after every battle to give you a moment to catch your breath and plan your next big move. Battles tend to be quicker affairs as well, but that may be because you’re initially limited in the number of characters that can be added to a unit, and have to earn ‘honor’ points to increase individual unit capacity. (I imagine these limits are to avoid having to fill units with random generic characters and let them focus on characters with backstories and personality, but I’m not a huge fan of it regardless—after all, sometimes those random generic characters become your best units!) You only get a brief glimpse of the many character classes boasted by the game, and while they all had some unique attributes (Thieves have high evasion, Hoplites have high defense, Soldiers can attack entire columns of enemies, etc.), the rock-paper-scissors style of play that the developers seemingly wanted to materialize never did: I just kind of mowed down everything in my path, even on standard “tactical” difficulty (Cavalry feels a bit too strong for the early part of the game). Still, the pieces are in place to enable some serious strategy in later battles, and it was still a fun time despite the imbalances.

Characters can be tossed at you early and often without a ton of backstory, but they generally had enough…well, character to make themselves interesting and draw you into the story. Yes, everyone tends to put into a convenient archetype, and if you’ve played Triangle Strategy, you’ll recognize them immediately (Alain is the preternaturally-calm heir like Serenoa, Lex is the rash, headstrong childhood friend/Roland impersonator, Chloe is the exasperated Lex-sitter serving in the Hughette role, Josef is the wizened paladin who combines Erador’s strength with Benedict’s strategic mind, etc.), but just because they fit into a mold doesn’t mean they aren’t compelling, and they all seem to be pretty effective in battle (yes, Josef is way overleveled and I expect to lose him eventually much like Sir Sloan in Bravely Default II, but Scarlett flexing her muscle and showing off some incredible power made her an early-game standout). Some characters are less likeable than others, but thus far I haven’t found any Decimal or Giovanna types that are basically useless—everyone has a purpose to serve, and for the most part everyone fits into the story without too much friction (although some, like Aubin, felt a bit shoehorned in).

One notable difference from those old Ogre Battle games is that there’s a bit more (literal) world-building this time around. With an overworld that you can freely roam around, you can find items, complete tasks for liberated cities to help them rebuild (and offer you more services in the process), and complete side quests to recruit more characters to your cause. There’s a lot more to do in this game than just jump from battle to battle, and it extends the shelf life of the game while giving you a chance (and a reason) to explore the world and construct the ultimate roster for your squad.

Overall, I was pretty impressed with Unicorn Overlord, and while I have some questions about how the game will develop over time (will one class dominate the others, and will strategy become more important?), I think this game has got some serious potential and could develop into something special. Unlike some of the recent demos I’ve gotten to play, this one actually motivated me to want to play the game more, and that’s an important step towards building an audience for Atlus and Vanillaware’s current and future titles. As much as I’m still confused by the game’s title, the game has made its mission and its offerings very clear, and I’m interested to see if it can turn its potential into reality.

Song Review: Hailey Whitters, “I’m In Love”

If only Nashville had listened to me for a change…

Hailey Whitters was first introduced to the airwaves in 2022 via the sleazy-sounding “Everything She Ain’t,” a Bro-Country callback that endeared her to absolutely no one. The song limped to a #17 peak after spending over a year on the charts, and she and her label ended up canning her major-label debut Raised after one single and moving on to a new EP late in 2023. If I’m honest, reviewing this thing feels like a pointless exercise, as it was officially released back in October and is only now washing up onto the fringes of the Mediabase Top 50, so I get the sense that there’s already a fork sticking out of this track. It’s really too bad, because this is a much better song than “Everything She Ain’t” and really plays to Whitters’s strengths as an artist, and while I hesitate to call it a good song, it would have made a lot better first impression on the radio than her actual debut did.

The true star of this song is the production, which uses a bluegrass-tinged arrangement to set the absolutely perfect mood for the song. An acoustic guitar and a mandolin open the track and split the melody-carrying duties, and over the course of the song the mix just keeps adding pieces: First a steel guitar, then a basic drum set (yeah, Grady Smith’s favorite clap track shows up too), then a banjo, and then the first accordion I’ve heard on the radio in a long time, and eventually an restrained-but-retro-toned electric guitar. It’s a busy arrangement, but one that never feels overwhelming (in fact, my major complaint here is that Whitters’s vocals are way too loud in the mix and tends to overshadow the sound), and the bright instrument tones blend together to create an upbeat, optimistic, almost-bubbly atmosphere that perfectly captures the euphoric, all-encompassing feeling of young love. Sure, it can all feel a bit too saccharine at times, but there’s also a real warmth to the sound that invites the listener in, and you just can’t help but smile and shake your head at the sheer positivity on display. Unlike the sour vibes of “Everything She Ain’t,” this is a mix that everything can get behind and enjoy, and it’s the reason the song leaves as positive an impression as it does.

I don’t mind Whitters as a vocalist, but going in I wasn’t sure she was the best person to cover this kind of song. Her voice brings to mind artists like Natalie Maines or Miranda Lambert, but I get some strong Sara Evans vibes from this song, and where Evans was a more polished and powerful singer, Whitters’s delivery is sharper and choppier, and doesn’t have the smooth flow that would better suit this track. However, her case for getting behind the mic this time is surprisingly compelling: The artist that I called out on “Everything She Ain’t” because “she doesn’t have the charisma to make the…argument stick” does a great job as the narrator here, primarily through (wait for it) sheer charm and charisma. She may not be the singer you would expect on a track like this, but there’s a sort of raw authenticity here and her performance is absolutely effervescent, and you can absolutely feel the romance in the air as she delivers her lines. Sometimes it’s more about how well an artist fits with the subject matter than anything else, and Whitters just seems more comfortable in the role of unabashed lover than as a shifty partner-stealer. I think the audience would have reacted a lot better to her had her debut been something like this, and it’s a shame that it wasn’t.

The writing is…well, it’s a lightweight love song with a simple “X in Y” format, so you’re not going to get a whole lot of deep meaning here, but even by those standard it feels more scattershot than it should. The edible and homey references do help set the scene around the couple, but other lines fall somewhere in the range between filler and cringe (talking about Mercury being in retrograde seems weird when apparently it’s not a great omen for relationships, referencing a deer in rut feels more than a little awkward even in a love song, and “two bottles into a bottle of wine” is just pure nonsense). There are also a couple of throwaway lines that just beg for more context and kinda-sorta make me concerned for the people in the house: Why is Dad in the doghouse? What is the sister smoking? (It reminds me a bit of Tracy Lawrence’s “Time Marches On,” but that song is supposed to be unsettling; this one isn’t.) Finally, there isn’t a ton of exploration into the narrator’s feelings: They declare that “I’m in love,” and we’re all just supposed to nod along, despite the fact that the connection seems pretty superficial up to this point (and also generic: It’s a guy! In a T-shirt and jeans! With a Chevy!). Ultimately, it’s a song that doesn’t take itself seriously and really doesn’t want us reading too deep into the lyrics—it just wants to be a conduit for the production and Whitters’s performance, and while they’re mostly able to elevate the track, it’s not enough to completely distract you from the deficiencies of the prose.

“I’m In Love” is a silly little love song, nothing more and nothing less, and for as much as I side-eye the writing and some of its choices, the production is pleasant enough to kinda-sorta paper over the problems, and Hailey Whitters is able to bring the track to some sort of positive result through the sheer force of her personality. It’s a decent song compared to what’s on the radio right now, and honestly it’s another indicator that the genre is seeing a turnaround early in 2024 after a super-rough 2023. I’m hoping this track isn’t already bound for the recurrent graveyard, but if that ship has sailed, at least Whitters went down swinging. (It’s too bad her label didn’t let her come out swinging in the first place.)

Rating: 6/10. Give this one a few listens to see how it sounds.

Song Review: Dierks Bentley, “American Girl”

It’s nice to see cover songs making a bit of a comeback. I just wish people would pick better songs to cover.

“American Girl” first appeared on the debut album of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers back in 1976, and despite not making much noise on the charts either at the time or during later re-releases, the track has become one of Petty’s most well-known and well-regarded hits. By itself this wouldn’t be enough to warrant the attention of this blog, but the song has suddenly reappeared on Mediabase’s airplay chart thanks to Dierks Bentley’s performance as part of a Petty tribute album slated to release later this year. After watching cover songs basically disappear from the genre in recent years (and get replaced by derivative plagiarism “interpolation” works that do more dishonor to the original work than anything else), it’s nice to see them make a mini-comeback in the form of tracks like Petty/Bentley’s “American Girl” and Tracy Chapman/Luke Combs’s “Fast Car.” However, I wasn’t a big fan of Combs’s Chapman cover, and while I appreciate Bentley’s attempt to put his own spin on Petty’s tune, I think I like “American Girl” even less: It’s a song that feels half-baked and even kind of pointless in a vacuum, and not something I’m terribly keen on revisiting.

Let’s go ahead and rip the band-aid off: I’m sure that Petty is a great songwriter, but this is about as badly-written a track as I’ve heard in a while. We get two scenes, one where a protagonist (“an American girl”) badly wants to see the world, and one where they’re watching traffic (presumably after seeing the world) and wondering if it was the right decision. What’s most frustrating about the writing is its complete lack of context and detail: We never get any sense of what the person’s life was before or after they set off on their journey, we never know what they saw or did along the way (or what the “promise” was that they wanted to keep), we never learn anything about the possible relationship the person walked away from (heck, we don’t even know the other person exists until the “he crept back in her memory” line springs it on us late in the second verse), and what passes for a chorus feels completely disconnected from the rest of the song (what does “take it easy, baby/make it last all night” even mean here? It’s like a random Bro-Country track was spliced into the lyrics). The story has more holes in it than Swiss cheese, and while prompting the listener to ask so many questions isn’t necessarily a bad thing, this weak effort is nowhere near interesting enough to motivate people to seek out the answers. Throw in the fact that the song is basically over before the two-minute mark (so there was plenty of room to, you know, tell an actual story and provide a few more details), and the whole mess just feels incomplete, and really needed another draft or five before heading to the studio. I’m not all that familiar with Petty’s work, but I really hope his other songs are better than this drivel.

After listening to the Heartbreakers’s original recording, it’s clear that this song was nothing more than a vehicle for the sound, which features the iconic guitar power chords that would help define the sound of the era. Bentley, however, decided to put his own spin on the production by putting some bluegrass backing behind the drums, keyboard, and electric guitars. The guitars themselves don’t quite have the tone or personality of Petty’s mix, but they have a lot more support in the form of a banjo, mandolin, and fiddle that help fill in the gaps and provide some extra seasoning for the sound. It’s an interesting approach that suits the song well (the faster tempo fits the bluegrass style, and the rolling banjo in particular stands out among the arrangement), but it’s not applied as well as it could have been: The fiddle could have used more time in the spotlight, and the mandolin tends to get lost in the mix when placed up against the guitars. Still, the mix captures all of the energy and enthusiasm of the original sound, and it does its best to sweep the listener up in the atmosphere and distract them from the disaster that is the writing. It’s cool to see an artist put their own spin on a classic, and to me, this was a risk that really paid off.

As far as Dierks Bentley goes…well, I prefer his vocals by a mile over Petty’s thinner, less-clear performance, but there’s only so much he can do when the lyrics give him so little to work with. The contrast between the potential of the first verse and the missed opportunities in the second verse require a delicate touch that reflects the shift in attitude, but Bentley’s delivery is a bit too inflexible here, sticking with his early optimistic tone even when it no longer suits the story. It also requires a Herculean effort to keep the audience engaged when the story leaves you with this many questions and not enough answers, but while he certainly sounds invested in the tale, he can’t seem to pass that interest on to his audience, and as a result no one really cares about whether or not the “American girl” regrets how their life turned out. Bentley remains as good a vocalist as you’ll find in country music, but he’s simply powerless when faced with lyrics this sparse and short, and the listener moves on long before the song ends.

“American Girl” is a surprisingly unimpressive song, with writing that feels scattershot, porous, and not at all worth hearing. Sure, the production is decent and Dierks Bentley does the best he can do with the limited lyrics, but he’s got an entire album sitting around from 2010 that features him singing and playing bluegrass music, so what’s the point of listening to this thing? (The best thing I can say is that I prefer this version to Petty’s 1976 original, which isn’t saying a whole lot.) I appreciate the effort to bring back cover songs and celebrate the work of previous artists, but when the songs you’re reviving are this mediocre, it’s really not doing anyone involved much of a service. If you’re going to revive an old classic, make sure said classic is worth reviving first.

Rating: 5/10. It’s not really worth your time.

Song Review: Beyoncé, “Texas Hold ‘Em”

Well, this is a review I never expected to write.

Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, known professionally by her first name only, has been part of the mainstream music conversation for over twenty-five years and has long been recognized as a titan of the industry, but up until now she’s only dabbled in country music, such as with her 2016 song “Daddy Lessons.” That changed this year, with her upcoming Act II album reportedly being a full-fledged country album and her latest single “Texas Hold ‘Em” already getting airplay on country radio (despite some initial resistance). Artists from other genres cross over into country music all the time (heck, we’ve got everyone from Darius Rucker to Gwen Stefani in Music City right now), but rarely does a star of this magnitude walk through the swinging doors (honestly, the best comparison I can come up with is Ray Charles’s landmark album Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music), and with Nashville stuck in a deep creative rut, where does Queen Bey’s release stack up against its competition and the genre as a whole? Well, there’s not a whole lot to the track and I think I prefer the story of “Daddy Lessons” to the lightweight (lack of) story here, but there’s just something about the execution and synergy of the components that really draws the listener in, and I think it stacks well up fairly well against this genre’s current radio offerings.

One of the interesting dynamics I’ve noticed with country music is that while artists “on the inside” can sometimes push the boundaries to incorporate elements traditionally associated with other genres, artists looking to enter the genre usually make a concerted effort to work traditional country elements into their work, anticipating the pushback they’ll receive for being “not country.” The production here is no different: It opens with a rustic banjo (courtesy of acclaimed musician Rhiannon Giddens), leaves most of the melody-carrying work to an acoustic guitar, eschews both drum sets and drum machines to build a percussion line out of stomps and shakers (some of this may still be synthetic, but it doesn’t sound like it), and even incorporates a fiddle and piano later on in the track. The instruments don’t get much opportunity to demonstrate their synergy (it seems like only one piece at a time gets to play alongside the percussion, and sometimes everything drops away but the bass), but the sound feels consistent nonetheless, and the brighter tones and faster tempo really drive the song forward and give it the energy that it needs as a dance track. It’s a mix with lot of life despite its restrained approach, and as I alluded to in my review of Stefani and Blake Shelton’s “Purple Irises,” this song feels a lot more “country” than a fair bit of its competition.

I’ll be honest here: “Daddy Lessons” is really my only exposure to Beyoncé before this track, so I can’t really talk about the image and persona that she’s built through her past work and how it accentuates or contradicts what’s happening here. (The song doesn’t really push her as a vocalist either, although she demonstrates some solid flow on the rapid-fire sections.) Still, you can get a pretty good picture of who she is through this performance alone, and I can tell where the Queen Bey nickname came from: She projects an incredible amount of both control and confidence in her delivery, like she expects to own any room she walks into. There’s a firmness to her voice that wants the person she’s talking to to stop holding back and finally take action, but she also brings a bit of playfulness to the table to pull her punch and makes her ask feel more like a request than a demand. She does a nice job drawing the listener into the song in the absence of a compelling story, and if she really wanted to dive into country music full time, I have no doubt that she could pull it off.

The lyrics are easily the weakest part of the track, as they’re not all that interesting by themselves and need a lot of help from the other parts of the song to stay afloat. The narrator here is looking for a little fun and romance, and with their partner dithering a bit and showing some reticence, they declare that “This ain’t Texas, ain’t no hold ’em” and ask their partner to let their true feelings show and join them in “a real life boogie and a real life hoedown.” There’s no backstory to set up the dynamic between the characters, the detail here is pretty scattershot (apparently they’re hiding from a tornado at some point?), and while you could pull a ‘don’t hide from the world, show your true self’ message from the track, it’s mostly buried under the dancing and other activities the speaker would like to engage in. Thankfully, the song provides a lot of hooks for the vocalist to use their charm and charisma to give it the fun vibe that it really needs, and the energy of the production helps keep things light and distracts you from the shallow writing. It could have been better, but it does what it needs to do, and sometimes that’s all you can ask for.

In the end, “Texas Hold ‘Em” is a decent foray into country music by Beyoncé, and certainly stands out among the many tracks it’s competing with for airplay. The writing isn’t anything to write home about, but the production is both a nice change of pace and a nice hat-tip to the sounds that defined the genre, and Beyoncé delivers a solid performance behind the mic that shows you exactly why she’s as highly-regarded as she is. Given how much of an uphill battle it’s been for acts like Chapel Hart and Mickey Guyton to find any traction in Nashville, I’m hoping that Queen Bey can kick down a few doors with this track and let this town know what they’ve been missing all these years. Let’s hope that this is one wake-up call Music City doesn’t miss.

Rating: 6/10. It’s worth a few spins to see what you think.

Splatoon 3 Side Order DLC: Is It Worth Buying?

Is it endlessly replayable? Not really. Is it replayable enough for the price? I think so.

Over a year after Nintendo announced its Expansion Pass for Splatoon 3, the second and final wave has arrived in the form of Side Order, a roguelite single-player campaign to climb the Spire of Order and free Inkopolis Square from the clutches of some order-loving bad guys. Given that Wave 1 of the DLC was nothing but a return of Inkopolis Plaza from Splatoon, a lot was riding on Side Order to justify the $25 purchase price of the entire package. After a couple of successful campaigns through the tower, was the Expansion Pass finally worth the money it demanded?

Given both the challenge involved and the rewards you can earn for beating it, I’m going to go with a lukewarm “yes” here. However, I don’t think it’s quite as good as the Octo Expansion DLC we got for Splatoon 2, and I don’t see myself returning to it much once I’ve earned all the rewards and satisfied my inner completionist.

The story here (without getting too spoilery) is that someone has created a virtual copy of Inkopolis Square that has been taken over by an evil force bent on creating an unchanging world of order, and your job is to…well, not let that happen. Stopping them requires clearing each floor of a tower one-by-one, with randomized challenges waiting for you on each floor. The difficulty ramps up as you close in on the top floor (there will be 30 in total after a 10-floor tutorial), but each floor cleared gives you a randomized bonus in the form of a chip that augments your powers (makes you weapon stronger, makes you faster or more ink efficient, makes your companion Pearl drone stronger, etc.) to help even the odds at high difficulties. (You can even potentially change your sub and special weapon if you find a special vending machine stage.) Defeat the boss at the top of the tower, and you will (save? cleanse? free?) the weapon Palette full of chips you used, and get to use that replica weapon in multiplayer battles.

Given that there are double-digit Palettes to clear overall, the DLC hinges on whether or not the randomized challenges on each floor are worth coming back to, and up to a point they are. Unfortunately, the floor themselves don’t offer a ton of variety: There are only five challenge types (Splat Zones, Tower Controls, enemy portal destroying, 8-Ball guiding, and chasing down speedy enemies), and despite all the different floor layouts that are included, they start feeling repetitive a lot quicker than they should. (With a potential for 27 floor/mode layouts per run, you start recognizing stages very quickly.) Most floors can be cleared within a couple of minutes, which fits the Switch’s old pick-up-and-play mentality very well, and most of the stage/floor challenge combinations are okay (though none really stand out). However, when challenges do drag on, such as with high-difficulty split-zone maps, it can be an absolute nightmare to complete (and not that much fun to play). I do like the different ways that each weapon can be upgraded (in addition to general chips, there are weapon-specific buffs that only certain Palettes can get), and admittedly getting out of a serious jam at the last moment can be exciting. Finally, the bosses are decent, but with only three mini-bosses and one final boss, those can get old fast as well. (One last minor gripe: Getting into the tower and each stage feels way slower than it should, especially the not-that-useful cage rides into each floor. Just get to the action already!)

I’m not a huge fan of the continue system here: Where Octo Expansion felt very modular and let you hack away at a stage until it was done, losing all your lives in Side Order means your run ends and you’re kicked back down to the base of the tower. It makes late-run losses that much more of a pain, although it does give you the chance to rebuild your Palette and perhaps get some better chips the next time through. The game also provides “hacks” that can give you permanent stat boosts that can improve your chances of success in subsequent tower trips. You can also purchase gear and collectibles that can be shown off in your locker or used in other multiplayer modes.

So given all this, is there $25 worth of value to be found in Side Order? Given the number of things to collect and the decent good/bad scenario ratio, I’m inclined to say yes, as Splatoon fans will find a fair bit to like here. I’m also inclined, however, to say that Octo Expansion was a far better experience: There were more clunker stages in OE (those box art stages were really bad), but there were also some really good ones too, stages that I would go back and play over and over even after all the rewards had been exhausted. (You also got to use the non-main types of each weapon class in OE, in contrast to having only the vanilla version of everything here.) In contrast, once I unlock all the weapons from the Palettes, I don’t think I’ll be coming back here much. In essence, Side Order follows the same pattern as the main game: It’s good, but it’s not as good as it once was, and it’s not as good as could have been.

You’ll get your money’s worth out of this Expansion Pass, nothing more and nothing less. As disappointing as this game has been thus far, I suppose that counts as a win.

Lost In The Shuffle, Vol. 15: The Dance Mix

I’ll admit that I’ve always had an affinity for sad, slow songs over the years, and the contents of my old iPad reflect that preference. Even I enjoy an uptempo barnburner once in a while, however, and on some nights when the moon is full and the feeling’s right, the old tablet decides that it’s in a mood to groove, and the energy levels get cranked up a few notches. That appears to be the case tonight: As I embarked on another unexpected round of travel, the iPad decided to kick things into high gear and deliver some good-time energy through the speakers. The question now: Was it any good?

The normal concept of LITS is simple: Hit the shuffle button on my old iPad, listen to ten songs chosen by whatever random number generator Apple uses (which could end up being anything from sizzling singles to deep album cuts to songs not even remotely related to country music), make a snap judgement on how good or bad the songs are, and produce a highly-subjective ranking of the impromptu playlist.

Is this silly and without purpose? Absolutely, but it’s also a chance to potentially introduce folks to some different songs/artists, and potentially introduce people to some great material that they had forgotten or missed. Without further ado, let’s hit the play button and see just how wacky my musical library really is.

The Playlist

#1: The Temptations, “Get Ready”

We’re starting off with a retro vibe today, and honestly it’s a song that hasn’t aged terribly well, especially in the wake of trends like Boyfriend country. I’ve always been a fan of the production here: The horns and piano give the song some serious muscle and drive, and the strings offer higher-pitched support to complement the lower-pitched horns. The sound may have some serious energy and force behind it, but it’s that force that gives me pause today when the lyrics are considered. The narrator here is a lovestruck suitor that’s decided to pursue the object of their affection whatever the cost (and regardless of what the other person actually thinks about the arrangement), culminating in the “get ready” hook that comes across as far more commanding (perhaps even demanding) than it should. Lead singer Eddie Kendricks has a solid falsetto that, while I can’t comment on how it stood out then, it certainly stands out from musical acts now, but neither his performance nor the solid harmony work of the other Temptations are enough to counter the pushy nature of the narrator (much like the country artists that defined the Boyfriend country era). It’s got a catchy sound, but I’m not sure I’m sold on the speaker’s attitude, and its ranking here will likely suffer because of it.

#2: Sugarland, “Little Miss”

Honestly, this song feels like the inverse of “Get Ready”: The production is really nothing to write home about, but the writing is a fair bit stronger. The pieces here are what you might expect: An acoustic guitar to carry the melody, a piano to bring some warmth to the track (a departure from the instrument’s usual role), some electric guitars serving in a support role in the background, and a standard drum set keeping time. The resulting sound isn’t terribly catchy or compelling, but at least it suits the more-serious nature of the track. The protagonist here (not the narrator, as they are merely delivering the story as a third party) is a woman who has fallen on hard times romantically, but demonstrates their inner strength and resilience by giving much of themselves and swallowing their pain to keep it from changing who they are. It’s not the healthiest behavior choice, but it’s certainly a relatable one, as we all know someone (or are someone) who is forever supporting others at the expense of themselves. The song helps it case by ending on an optimistic note, showing that the main character, despite their over-devotion to others, has found the time and space to work through their grief and is ready to get back in the romance game once again. Jennifer Nettles does a good job showing us the humanity and the toughness of the protagonist, and uses her charm and charisma to convince the audience that this person should be respected rather than pitied, and that better times are indeed in store for them. (Kristian Bush is…here, I guess, contributing a sparse few notable words to the performance.) It’s a solid song from a group that I feel like has been forgotten a lot faster than I expected, and is probably one of their tracks that best deserves to be remembered.

#3: Clay Walker, “Live, Laugh, Love”

Now this is an entry I can get behind! I’m a huge fan of the production here, with its use of Spanish guitars, accordions, xylophones, organs, and hand-played drums (and even a triangle?!) to give the sound an exotic-island-esque flavor…and then drops in a fiddle-and-steel combo and blends the whole thing together perfectly into an upbeat, carefree mix that you can’t help but rock out to as it plays (the extended outro alone is worth the price of admission). It stood out on the radio back in the day, and stands out in even more in today’s sea of nihilistic, electrified, booze-soaked party tracks (heck, the only thing the narrator is drinking in here is “happiness”). Speaking of the narrator, instead of encouraging the user to stop thinking about everything besides what’s in their glass, the message here is to focus on the things that really matter and make you happy (in this case, family, nature, and home). There’s a simple joy behind this song, and it comes to life thanks to Walker’s lively, cheerful performance, where he applies every bit of his copious charisma to sell the listener on his lifestyles choices (and he succeeds, to say the least). In my opinion, Clay Walker is one of the most underrated country stars of the 1990s, and he released a ton of great material that deserves to be remembered. This one is as good a place to start as any.

#4: Kelsea Ballerini, “Love Me Like You Mean It”

In hindsight, Ballerini’s radio debut was both a period piece and a sign of things to come. At first listen, this might seem like Rule 63 applied to Bro-Country, with its heavy synthetic beat, token banjo, Grady Smith’s favorite clap track, and its gushing over a generic “boy with your hat back.” However, this was less a copycat track and more of an answer song: The narrator here already dealt with their share of “losers, liars and users…that are playing the game,” and they’re looking for something deeper and more meaningful that a short, superficial fling. If the target of this track wants to pair up, the narrator wants them to “love me like you mean it,” and Ballerini balances the speaker’s openness and interest in love with a seriousness that demands real emotion and commitment (there’s an edge to her delivery, but the punch is pulled a bit—she doesn’t want to scare or overwhelm the other person, but she does want to put them on notice and set her expectations early). Looking back, the song feels like a response to Bro-Country, but set to a beat and spoken in a language that the Bro-Country purveyors could understand. It was an early sample of what Ballerini could (and would) deliver, and revisiting it was more of a treat than I expected.

#5: Shenandoah, “I Wanna Be Loved Like That”

The tempo is slowing a bit, but the good vibes continue on with our next pick. This is a piano ballad that treads dangerously close to saccharine territory, leaning on overdone tropes (Rebel Without A Cause! Mom & Dad! Old man carrying a torch after their partner’s death!) to tug at the heartstrings and provide a model of the sort of relationship the narrator is looking for. However, I would argue this song never feels sappy or cheesy despite its subject material, and the main reason for that lead singer Marty Rayborn’s heartfelt performance behind the mic. He just sounds so passionate and sincere as he delivers his lines, and you can’t help but believe him when he says “I want to be loved like that.” The production builds up a little over time with the addition of drums and electric guitars, but it feels like a natural progression to the song’s climax rather than appearing forced or over-the-top. I don’t feel the band is terribly well represented here (I don’t think the group ever had as strong a signature sound as, say, Diamond Rio did), but they create a suitable atmosphere for the track that toes the line between genuine and gooey. All in all, I wouldn’t call it a top contender for the top spot, but it’s a pretty decent song nonetheless.

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#6: Garth Brooks, “Mr. Right”

Brooks was often painted as the man destroying country music with his rock-tinged influences (a claim that gets more laughable every year), but the man could drop a stone-cold country song when he wanted to, and “Mr. Right,” an album cut from 1992’s The Chase, was exactly that. With its prominent fiddle and steel guitar, tinkling piano, restrained drum set, and even a relative-slick electric guitar, this track has a good-time Western swing vibe to it, and features none of the louder, rougher elements that became his calling card in later years. The narrator can feel a bit sketchy as a character (he’s up for anything from a one-night stand to a forever love, and can feel a bit too forthcoming in his advances), but Brooks’s legendary everyman charisma helps dispel any reservations the listener might has, and makes you think he’d truly be up for whatever the other person is game for. The song is admittedly a bit short (it clocks in at a hair over two minutes), but its bright tone and rapid tempo make it a real ride from start to finish, and is yet another one of tonight’s entries that is guaranteed to get you moving. Is it enough to be a top contender for the night’s top spot? Well, that depends on what the rest of the list has to say…

#7: Shenandoah, “Church On The Cumberland Road”

Now this just isn’t fair: Not only does Shenandoah get a second entry on the list, but said entry is one of my favorite songs of the 1980s. There’s nothing terribly novel going on with the production (it’s mostly guitars and drums, with a piano sprinkled in at key moments), but it’s a song with some serious tempo and energy behind it, running nearly as fast as the 95 MPH the narrator’s ride is traveling. Raybon puts on another master class behind the mic: The narrator has partied far too hard and is now in danger of standing up his bride-to-be at “the church on the Cumberland Road,” but there’s both emotion and urgency (panic?) infused in his delivery here, and the audience is encouraged to think of him as the classic country music bad boy: He lives too fast and too hard, but he wants to do the right thing and has his heart in the right place. The second verse has always been a personal favorite of mine, as the speaker talks about the state of their compatriots (somewhere there’s a drawing I did many years ago of a person draped over a road sign because younger Kyle thought the line was “Bobby’s got his head hanging over the sign“) and berates the driver for not doing a good enough Richard Petty impression. Well, it may or may not have been fast enough to save a wedding, but it might have been enough to end the horse race in this post early. This is a rollicking good time of a song, and I can’t think of too many worthy competitors to it.

#8: The Statler Brothers, “This Ole House (Live)”

And the (up)beat goes on! The Statler Brothers had plenty of their own hits, but their cover of Stuart Hamblen’s 1954 spiritual classic turns out to be quite the sugar rush itself. Don Reid is the primary lead singer (brother Harold gets to open the verses) and sounds for all the world like a preacher at a revival sermon, and the barbershop quartet harmonies of the group remains as strong as ever nearly forty years after the group formed. The production leans into the revival motif of the track, with a driving piano and drum set producing a mix that absolutely crackles with energy as it speeds through its subject matter. The song is missing a bunch of verses and is here and gone in just over a minute-and-a-half, but it’s quite a trip for that short period of time, and the narrator’s description of the past and present state of their house do a nice job letting you visualize the scene and feel the strength of the speaker’s convictions. It’s probably not a contender for the crown tonight, but it was certainly fun while it lasted.

#9: Charlie Daniels, “Drinkin’ My Baby Goodbye”

Wait, Daniels had other songs beyond “The Devil Went Down To Georgia”? Yes, and this 1986 track was actually his second-most popular song on the country charts. The sound here is pretty standard for Daniels’s work: Rougher, rock-tinged electric guitars, tinkling barroom pianos, and of course his signature fiddle during a lot of heavy lifting in between verses and choruses. The tempo here, however, is about as fast as you would ever hear Daniels go, and the combination produces a driving, energetic atmosphere that propels the song forward. The writing is nothing to write home about (neither party involved comes out looking great, and the description we get makes the relationship seem pretty toxic and not really worth drinking over), and Daniels’s performance as an oft-criticized, repressed narrator who thinks that drinking himself into a stupor will show his ex exactly who get along without who feels like a precursor to the Ex-Boyfriend junk that we’ve been buried in recently, but it doesn’t feel quite as nasty as Morgan Wallen’s recent rants, and there’s at least a hint of self-awareness here (deep down Daniels seems to know that his behavior won’t do or change anything, but he’s going to do it anyway). It may not make much noise in today’s rankings, but it’s a decent bunch of noise nonetheless.

#10: Mark O’Connor, “The Devil Comes Back To Georgia”

Well, this was an unexpected bit of synergy! Lots of people know “The Devil Went Down To Georgia,” but not as many recall the 1993 sequel from fiddle player Mark O’Connor, complete with an all-star vocal cast of Johnny Cash, Travis Tritt, and of course Daniels himself. The story is basically a repeat of the previous tale (the Devil challenges an out-of-practice Johnny to get the golden fiddle back, but Johnny whips themselves back into shape and wins the second bout in the end), and the production choices and song structure are so similar that it wouldn’t feel out of place in the current Plagiarism (sorry, “interpolation”) trend, but this track at least maintains the continuity of the story and even builds on it slightly, meaning it feels like it truly honors the legacy of the original. Production-wise, the song is as fiddle-driven as you would expect, and O’Connor proves himself to be Daniels’s equal on the instrument, ripping through impressive riffs with the ease you expect from an expert musician (sound-wise, this might actually be better than the original). All three of the vocalists deliver solid, credible performances in their roles, and while Tritt needed some help from some echoey effects to sound truly demonic, no one here is mailing it in just to cash a paycheck. It can be tough to make a sequel that truly equals the original, but if I’m honest, this sequel might actually surpass its predecessor. Is it enough to make a big splash on this list? It’s time to find out…

The Results

Ranking	Song
#1	“Church On The Cumberland Road”
#2	“Live, Laugh, Love”
#3	“The Devil Comes Back To Georgia”
#4	“I Wanna Be Loved Like That”
#5	“Love Me Like You Mean It”
#6	“Little Miss”
#7	“Mr. Right”
#8	“Get Ready”
#9	“Drinkin’ My Baby Goodbye”
#10	“This Old House”

I can’t fight the weight of history here. “Church On The Cumberland Road” has always been a personal favorite of mine, and if I were to make a list of my Top 10 favorite songs ever, it has a strong chance of making the cut. Still, I think this was a fairly strong list from top to bottom with few disappointments, and it shows that while I tend to prefer slower, deeper, more meaningful songs these days, I still enjoy a fast-paced musical dash now and again, and there have been quite a few good ones made over the years. In truth, it’s all about finding something that reflects your mood and your feelings, and any song of any speed has a chance to fill that role.