“Lonely Eyes”
Chris Young
The thing about Chris Young is that he’s a great traditional country singer. I think that’s his preference, too.
But to remain relevant at country radio, he can’t get too country. So we get an intriguing song with a classic country setup – two lonely people in a bar, one admiring the other.
Simple enough premise. Slap on some steel guitar and fiddle, and you’ve got yourself a solid country song.
But no. We get the full Shelton instead. Heavy production with unnecessary guitar solos and invasive percussion. Young sounds like he recorded his vocal in the bathroom.
It’s a waste of great talent and good material.
Written by Johnny Bulford, Jason Matthews, and Laura Veltz
Grade: C
I actually find this to be one of, if not his strongest to date. I don’t find the production cluttered at all.
We’ve lost another one to the assembly line singers in Nashville. The Chris Young from just an album app, one album, Neon, has been completely erased. This single is yet another assembly line song from Nashville’s monotonous songwriters too, complete with all the usual traits of way too loud guitars and thumping percussion. “Text Me Texas” is one of the few songs I enjoy off of this album and I was hoping that would be his next single to go to radio, sadly it was not.
Boring. On the plus side, it’s not as terrible as Aw Naw.
“We get the full Shelton”. That’s a good description. Still, the voice and lyrics save it for me. It’s a decent song, it just could have been better.
Marcus,
Wow! His strongest to date? I’d say “Neon” and “Drinking Me Lonely” are his strongest singles by a lot. I guess I think this production is par for the course these days, maybe even a little dialed back, but still definitely too much and actually very bland.
Leeann,
For whatever reason “Neon” slipped my mind, that one is definitely my favorite Young single.
I actually find the production finds that perfect balance between pop and country.
This is a good enough lyrical composition that I can forgive the production. It could’ve been better, but I’ll take what I can get.
Agree with the C rating and OH’s comment.
Disagree with this review. Strong vocals with a great grasp and understanding of the lyric and tempo of the song. James Stroud did well with the production. This is going to resonate with the listeners.
Chris gives a great vocal effort & lyrically this one is pretty strong. Unfortunately, though the production is actually above par for most of the giants in the genre today, its subpar in comparison to Chris’ previous radio singles (except for Aw Naw) & really kills what could’ve been a really solid release. Id give this a C+ or B-.
…most excellent blandness of turner proportions. good vocals may save the day sometimes, but not this tune unfortunately.
This is a definite step backward artistically for Chris. That said, it is still better than much of what hits radio playlists these days