“The Way I Talk”
Morgan Wallen
Written by Jessi Alexander, Ben Hayslip, and Chase McGill
If you thought what country music needed was one more hillbilly pride song, here it is.
If you wanted the backstory of a voice that is irritating in that Florida Georgia Line kind of way, here it is.
Me, I’m less interested in why Morgan Wallen talks the way he does than I am in why he never bothered to learn how to sing before going into a recording studio.
I can’t attest to his speaking voice, but his singing is absolutely agonizing to listen to.
Grade: D
Kevin – you really nailed it on this one
Ugh
I’m just beyond my capacity for surprise that the bottom can keep falling farther and farther out. Chase Rice to David Fanning to Chris Lane to Tucker Beathard to this guy, and it just isn’t going to end.
And it isn’t even a matter of relative degrees of badness, like saying that Jason Aldean is slightly less tone-deaf than Kenny Chesney. This guy cannot sing.
Country music has offered some of the finest voices in the history of popular music, and now this is what we’re saddled with.
Agree with Kevin that “his singing is absolutely agonizing to listen to.” I am very fussy about vocals. Besides the ones named by Jonathan, there are many other country artists – some quite famous that many of you like – that I can’t bear to listen to. As Kevin said on the Beyonce-Chicks post, “I just listen to what I like to listen to.”
Yes, this guy is D-R-E-A-D-F-U-L. Where in the world has the braintrust on Music Row been for the last eight years?
What is perhaps most disappointing is that Jessi Alexander, who had an album of her own (Honeysuckle Sweet) eleven or twelve years ago, has her name attached to the songwriting credit. That is truly dispiriting, to see her lower herself to that level (IMHO).
To be fair Erik I don’t have any problems with the weighting on this which is what Jessi had a hand in