“Break Up in a Small Town”
Sam Hunt
Written by Zach Crowell, Sam Hunt, and Shane McAnally
I just don’t get Sam Hunt.
This is a fairly well-written song, and the chorus is solid and hook-laden.
But the whole spoken word verse shtick doesn’t work. He doesn’t even have an interesting speaking voice. Just monotone. His rhythm is off, and he simply talks too slowly.
Maybe I’ve gotten too old and outdated, but to me, it just sounds dumb.
Grade: D
It sounds doubly dumb to me since I’m probably twice your age.
I’m not against all songs with talking. The first ones i liked were by the Ink Spots.
Don’t care to turn on country radio and hear this or any Sam Hunt song! I don’t get his popularity either.
For me, this is a song that gets everything so wrong that it’s maddening. For starters, the framing is ridiculously. HE left HER, but now he’s mad that she’s hooked up with someone else. Uh, Sam, what did you expect her to do? The whole song is supposed to sound big and dramatic, and Hunt is supposed to be the guy who’s been wronged; but when you pull back and look at how it’s been framed, you see that it’s really just a song about a grown man moping.
And the production is terrible. The tinny slap of the drum programming, that weird synth solo, the random acoustic breakdown that only serves to show how decent the song could have sounded had it been given some room to breathe, and the fact that we’re all just supposed to buy into this as an “evolution” of the genre? Yuck.
I’ve been able to forgive Hunt’s blatant not-country-ness since his material has thus far had some sort of redeeming factor, be it the sentiment of “Take Your Time” or the swagger of “House Party” and “Leave The Night On”. If he had released “Make You Miss Me”, I would have been on board. But this is just garbage.
SRM in that way it’s like Adele’s new song; she’s singing about how she broke up with a guy and he won’t answer her calls. Um, why would he?
My one-word review for this “song”: VALIUM.
Jason,
At least Adele isn’t begging for our sympathy or trying to pass herself off as the victim in “Hello”, like Hunt’s trying to do here. Adele knows she messed up and wants her ex to know that it was all her fault. But yeah, that “I must’ve called a thousand times” line is really obnoxious in context.
SRM, I’m not so sure. Adele even admits in the song she’s basically making it about her. I mean, she’s talking about herself mostly, and she acknowledges continuing to try and talk to him even though he’s clearly moved on. So, maybe she’s not playing the victim, per se, but she’s still making it about her and not the person who was hurt.
Great song. Great artist. Glad he’s having the success he’s having. Here’s hoping Hunt gets his fourth number one song in a row.