“Hell of a Night”
Dustin Lynch
Written by Jaron Boyer, Zach Crowell, and Adam Sanders
I’m starting to believe that the “bro-country” movement doesn’t even exist, and it’s really just an attempt to ascribe meaning to a trend as old as Music City itself: lazy songwriting.
If country song lyrics were Legos, “Hell of a Night” could be fully constructed using a basic starter kit. There is not a single fresh line, let alone a fresh idea. It sounds so much like a Jason Aldean record that you could be forgiven for thinking that it’s one of his older singles that you completely forgot about because it doesn’t have him trying to rap in it.
Nobody’s going to remember this song in a year. Me? I’ve already forgotten about it.
Grade: D
Your D rating is well deserved.
I agree what frustrates me the most is Dustin Lynch clearly has shown capable of far more like Cowboys & Angels but every other single release has been basically bro-country I keep holding on hope his potential fully but he sells himself short.
Overall bland lyrics production and not even solid singing I wanna like him but he continues to do more bad than good if he keeps this up he could very well be forgotten and irrelevant.
Grade D.
Chart Prediction this might get Top 20 but not any higher for better or for worse (probably for the better)
Lynch seems to fall into that category of country artists (both male and female) where they’re not as concerned with whether the song on the radio is good, but more worried about how tight the shirt is in the video.
Beauty and muscles fade, but bad songs are career enders.
I think this is gonna perform like “Wild in Your Smile” and go nowhere. It’s only at #33 and it’s been out for a pretty long time.
I don’t understand how radio chooses which bro songs become hits. I understand that they just want to play songs that fit the format. But there are so many of those and only some become hits. So why does this one not become big but “Yeah” or “Young & Crazy” does. It’s not like this isn’t “good enough” to become a hit. Radio clearly isn’t concerned with quality.
Is it because this one sounds “too close” to Aldean? Not memorable enough hook? Weak melody? If so I can think of plenty of songs with those problems that did become hits.
I waste to much time trying to understand country radio.
How can you start your career off with “Cowboys and Angels” and end up here? How?
Six String Richie,
I have been trying to figure out the same thing. It doesn’t make sense, unless you consider label influence, but I don’t know all the labels and which artists are signed with which ones. And I don’t have the time to check or, frankly, have the heart to do so.
Motown Mike,
Chasing trends, I presume? It is a crying shame, these songs are giving a poor name to escapism to my despair.
It’s amazing that record labels and producers remain convinced the best way to “break” a potential star is by having him chase every possible trend going in their respective genre.
Part of what made Dustin Lynch’s first single so popular was the fact it sounded somewhat different than everything else that was on the radio at that time. Then they decided to ruin his career with every single song since. I doubt he it going to be able to bounce back either as his momentum at Country radio is pretty much dead.
I feel like the same thing happened with Chris Young as well, guy had a ton of momentum behind him by using a bit of a neo-traditional sound and then his label decided he needed to record a song that Aldean or Luke Bryan would cut and it has seemingly stalled his radio success a bit.
I get that artists and producers have been chasing trends since the dawn of time, but allowing artists to be SOMEWHAT different from the rest of the pack helps them out far more than by attempting to make them exact replicas of whatever singer or style is currently popular.
I liked “Cowboys & Angels” but since then he has been sliding toward the abyss. This is generic fodder D+ (grading on a curve)
Yee-Haw!
Another single about tailgate sex………..from an album that is constituted nearly half of songs about tailgate sex to some degree! ;)
*
This has sold quite poorly at any rate, so I don’t expect this to hold up much longer despite the fact he’s on Broken Bow.
He should have released “Mind Reader” if simply seeking hits was his intention, or “Your Daddy’s Boots” if he is hoping to garner more acclaim.