“Sleep Without You”
Brett Young
Written by Kelly Archer, Justin Ebach, and Brett Young
“Sleep Without You” sounds like it’s written about a real person.
Perhaps that’s damning with faint praise, given that there isn’t much positive that I can say about the vocal performance or the songwriting as a whole. Even Darius Rucker never dared to send a Hootie knockoff like this to country radio.
But the girl he’s writing about isn’t a caricature or a cardboard cut-out. She’s a woman with friends and a life that doesn’t fully revolve around the guy she’s with.
It’s a step in the right direction, I guess.
Grade: C
I’m inclined to be nicer to this song than I probably should be, and since this will probably be Brett Young’s only hit (at least I hope so, we reached our quota on indistinguishably handsome white male acts LONG ago) I’ll at least say that I have trouble thinking of “bad” things about it. The melody’s nice, Young has an engaging vocal presence, the production isn’t overly synthetic (even if it is pretty neutered), and the hook is cute enough to take it above mediocre for me. I’d give this a B-.