This song has it all!
It’s got a great hook, amazing production, and clever songwriting.
There’s witty humor, keen social observations, and a stunning vocal performance.
Paisley just camouflaged all of the above so well that it’s completely indetectable.
Written by Chris DuBois, Kelly Lovelace, and Brad Paisley
Grade: D
Listen: Camouflage
Love the review, Kevin! This is nothing but a novelty song, and a pretty lousy one at that. Pure album filler on an album with some potential singles that are actually good.
There’s a rain delay in the Tigers-Rangers game so I’m listening to the Heartbreaker’s Hall of Fame album and thought I’d see if there’s anything new on CU. I didn’t buy the new Paisley album due to my disappointment with the first 3 singles so I never heard Camouflage before. After 2 listens and reading the lyrics on-line, I’m inclined to agree with the D rating. Some songs grab you. This one pushes me away. Maybe I’ll give it another listen some day with the volume real low since I have liked a lot of Brad’s music in the past.
I knew there’d be a punchline!:)
I like Brad, but this album was a huge disappointment, including this song.
Ha, love it! (The review, not the song)
When I read the preview on the home page, I was all “SERIOUSLY??” Then I realized what it was leading up to. Too funny!
As for the song… yeah. He sounds like he stopped trying a long time ago. The annoying call-and-response background vocals were the final death stroke, not that there was any saving the song to begin with.
Wow. Is there a like button here for the review. LoL
For the new album, meh
I would have preferred “Toothbrush” as a single, but considering Paisley didn’t have a hand in writing it, I won’t be surprised if it didn’t get released. I actually like this song, but the chorus is just lazy.
As always, great review :)
I feel completely disllusioned with Brad these days.
Remember when a new Paisley song was a cause for celebration? I just barely do…he’s been releasing meh song after meh song for two albums now.
@ Hoggy – some of your fellow Aussies will be at the Bluebird Tuesday evening and at other Nashville venues the rest of the week.
9:00 Taste of Australia Presents: An Evening with Duke Wilde Band, Lachlan Bryan, Mia Dyson, Catherine Britt, Chris Altmann and James Blundell, NO COVER
6:00 Taste of Australia Presents: In The Row with James Blundell, David Garnham, Harry Hookey, Caitlin Harnett, Kristy Cox, Ange Boxall and Chris Pickering, no cover
…you may be a redneck…, if you like this song.
i’d think leonardo was doddleing once in a while, michael jordan quietly threw the odd paper ball into a nearby bin and neil armstrong jumped down the stairs of his front porch without commenting it every time.
…could i really be a redneck? mindboggling.
I feel the same way as O.H. When Paisley started out, I counted myself a big fan. Then, ’round about his third album he started slipping, and he has yet to find his footing again.
Loved the review.
I echo the sentiments of J.R. and Occasional Hope. There was a time when I had a significant interest in Brad’s music, but it just seems like that spark of inspiration and creativity has gone out. It seems like he’s on autopilot, just giving fans what they’ve come to expect from him, without making much of a discernible attempt to advance his art. Like Dan said not too long ago, he’s become more self-impressed, and less self-aware. I kind of wish he would stop writing his own songs for a while, and instead go with some interesting outside material.
This one is diminished returns on “Ticks” which was already diminished returns on “Alcohol,” but I’d still say it’s the least poor of the four singles from This is Country Music.
Damned by faint praise and all, I guess, but I will say that the guitar-work in the bridge is some of the best he’s put down on a non-Play album, and I’ll grudgingly give him the “it disappears when he pulls out of his garage” and “you shoulda seen the way it popped with her corsage” rhymes. None of that is enough to make this anything I’d willingly go to bat for, but I don’t find this actively hateful in the same way that so much of what it’s up against on radio right now is.
He’s lowered expectations enough that this doesn’t register as a disappointment. But it surely isn’t enough to get me back in his camp, either.
Fantastic review, as always, Kevin!
Don’t want to get too redundant to my comment on the other Paisley thread, but I would argue that he is still writing classic country songs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jig4Wcg_fgY) and cutting interesting outside material (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciUGE14Cbik) if you go through his albums closely enough.
I actually find it amuzing that people don’t like this song, and some say his past few havn’t been too good.
These opinion are just opinions yes, but when you have almost every song you release hitting #1 as well as your album sales dominating the compatition and sell out crowds lining up to be entertained, something’s gotta be working.
Could be a sign that Brad is revolutioning the genre for better or worse, could be a sign that coutnry is getting worse, whatever the case Brad has certainly set the bar lately, with or without this song.
When compared with “Red solo Cup,” the latest from self-publishing Toby Keith, “Camouflage” is effin’ brilliant.
Comparing it to “Bait A Hook,” or “A Drink In My Hand”….well, it’s incomparable. It’s sunny, silly and still smart. There’s nothing I hate more, in current country radio fodder, than the stereotype of being a (preferably) intoxicated, ignorant hick first and foremost. Add “surly s.o.b.” to that description, and it’s a guaranteed hit. It’s bewildering to me why this totally self-sabotaging image is so embraced by so many.
Brad’s never played that guy, and clearly he never will. The closest he’s come is “Ticks,” and it’s still not comparable. But y’all know the ones who trade on that image, and it’s unbelievable to me that they are actually the trend of modern country. If Brad’s amiable-but-smart version of personifying country is becoming stale, I shudder for the future.
I agree with Cowboy Blue that Brad’s still the top shelf among the current charting country males. I can’t wait until the rampant self-loathing era ends.
Now that is a review. Publish this one, book mark it, love it.
Mr. Paisley crossed the line with his comment about “stars and bars” (when he was really referring to the Confederate Battle Flag, not the Stars and Bars which was the national flag of the Confederacy at one point) being something we should retire.
All at the expense of making a song trying to appeal to 13 year old boys desire to be “country” while living in the city.
For perhaps twenty seconds as I was reading this, I felt almost physically as if my sense of reality was shifting, becoming something different and new, a little like what happens when I read the works of Philip K. Dick, except that this is a review of a country song, and not a novel exploring what it really means to be human and alive. Could it be? Is Coyne expressing an opinion that isn’t little more than unmitigated hatred twoards one of Paisley’s jokey novelty songs? I don’t remember taking any drugs today, but maybe someone slipped something int…
Then I read the last line, and burst out laughing. Great review.