“What About Now”
Lonestar
Written by Aaron Barker, Ron Harbin, and Anthony Smith
Radio & Records
#1 (4 weeks)
August 11 – September 1, 2000
Billboard
#1 (4 weeks)
August 12 – September 2, 2000
Lonestar’s biggest single before “Amazed” was “No News,” but their best single was the nostalgic “Everything’s Changed,” which captured that sense of Americana slipping away as well as any record of its day.
“Amazed” marked their transition from cookie cutter nineties country band to neo-yacht rockers, and that shift is even more prominent on the arena ready anthem, “What About Now.”
Lonestar would never again sound this exhilarated on record, as they make a passionate plea to leave behind all the baggage that’s been weighing them down and making them miserable. Maybe they were inspired by leaving behind a piece of baggage themselves, because they sure do sound happy being in the studio without John Rich.
They’re going to have more uptempo No. 1 hits, but none of them hold a candle to this call to hit the road and claim the brighter future that waits ahead.
“What About Now” gets an A.
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Sorry. I find this song boring. It’s good for the moment but like so many songs from the 2000’s and beyond, no one will remember this 20 years from now. “C+” at best.
This is my favorite Lonestar song. It’s held up and is completely nostalgic and hits all the warm fuzzy feeling of childhood vacations.
Lonestar was overdue for an uptempo banger and they mostly had one here. With a booming economy and the dawn of a new millennium, the country was in a pretty optimistic mood in a way that we haven’t really experienced in the quarter century since, and the music of 2000 largely reflected that sunny horizon. This song tapped into that mood with vigor and tempo, but it nonetheless has a retro feel hearkening back to the mid-90s when these “let’s get out of this dump” tunes were all over the radio dial, with Alabama’s “Reckless” and BlackHawk’s “Down in Flames” being two examples just off the top of my head. I’d put “What About Now” in between those two in terms of effectiveness but still have to call the song out for feeling like a bit of cliche, and an unintentionally humorous one at that with bands full of middle-aged men pretending they’re 18 years old.
Lonestar seems to have some ferocious critics around here which I find a bit surprising as I always found the vocals and musicianship to be a cut above average, but I am bit surprised they didn’t ride the wave of energy evoked by this song for more of their subsequent hits. Instead, they allowed themselves to be defined by “Amazed” and also pivoted to more of a family-friendly Disney band that never struck me as the right lane for them. I remember how much Lonestar members flexed out of the gate, saying they wouldn’t be satisfied merely having a string of hits. They wanted the kind of generational run that Alabama had. Certainly in their “Lonely Grill” era, it seemed as though they were well on their way to making that happen but it was clear by mid-decade that they were gonna come up short. I, for one, was at least a little disappointed about that.
Grade: A-
Nice break after a couple of identikit ballads. Not my favorite from them–it’ll probably always be Tequila Talkin’–but it’s pleasant enough wirh a pretty good hook. B
Richie McDonald interjecting the weakest of “whoo” or “yeah” over a song’s intro became Lonestar’s unfortunate and lame calling card, a guarantee the party was, in fact, not about to get started.
This band was all about posturing and flexing. They exuded an uncomfortable desperation to be perceived as fun and edgy, or even just received as vaguely cool.
Which is funny given the lyrics to this song offer the opportunity to inject some ragged desperation, frustration, and urgency into the vocals. Instead we get McDonald politely asking “What about now?” Like he’s reading lunch options from an Applebee’s menu.
Lonestar should check out Travis Tritt’s “Start the Car” for a gut check.
Lonestar never really caught my interest. I regarded them as good but not great and this fit my expectations of them as a good band – this song is worth a B. Maybe it is just me but something about Mc Donald’s reading of the lyrics strikes me as insincere.
This is my other most favorite Lonely Grill single besides “Smile.” This song always reminds me of the trips to York and Lancaster, Pennsylvania that I went on with my mom and step dad throughout the summer of 2000 and hearing it on more that one occasion in the car, because it was such a popular song at the time. As pointed out by MarkMinnesota, this was yet another feel good pop country tune that reflected the optimism felt throughout much of the Spring and Summer of 2000, and it always takes me back to that time. Other contemporary country songs from around the same time that have that 2000 feel good magic for me: “Another Nine Minutes” by Yankee Grey, “Carlene” by Phil Vassar, “The Fun Of Your Love” by Jennifer Day, “Your Everything” by Keith Urban, “There You Are” by Martina McBride, “Prayin’ For Daylight” by Rascal Flatts, “I Will” by SheDaisy, “That’s The Way” by Jo Dee Messina, and “Feels Like Love” by Vince Gill. In many ways, a lot of mainstream country songs from 2000 to 2002 just feel more progressive and “futuristic” to me that much of mainstream country from the last 20 years.
But back to “Right About Now,” I’m in full agreement with Kevin that it’s one of their most energetic and exciting records. I love the passion and determination in Richie McDonald’s vocals here, along with the breezy feel of the song, the driving tempo, and catchy melody. To my ears, he really does sound like someone who can’t wait to hit the road with his romantic partner. I especially love how it seems like he singing the question of “What about now?!” with even more excitement during the latter half of the song and with more impatience when he sings the final “Why should we wait?!” Always loved that “Yeah!!” he does at the end, too. And as already mentioned, this song was like a return to the “Lets leave town and hit the road” kind of songs that were all over country radio in the early-mid 90s. But while those older songs usually had more of a dusty country rock feel and rawer production that made me envision classic cars driving down desert roads in the southwest, the more sleek and sophisticated production by Dann Huff makes “What About Now” firmly an early 2000s take on the that kind of song with me picturing interstates with skyscrapers and city lights in the distance instead. The drums have a slick, pop feel to them, and that cool sounding steel guitar in the intro has a really neat futuristic vibe to it. Seriously the sound the steel makes at around 0:14 is so friggin’ cool to me, and it almost makes it sound like it’s going to be a song about a trip in a flying car or spaceship instead of an old fashioned car on an old fashioned road. That Latin style clicking sound throughout the verses also gives the song an extra level of sophistication. I remember around the late 2000s and early 2010 really getting back into this song and wishing that more pop country songs still sounded this cool and exciting.
Oh, and I always liked how the vehicle was described in the first verse with especially the lines “the last remaining dinosaur Detroit made” and “jukebox on wheels” putting funny images in my mind for the longest time before I figured out he was actually talking about the car he bought, lol.
I’ll go to bat for this song. Probably one of the better post-Amazed Lonestar records due to the energy it carries. Still not a huge favorite of mine, but that is more to do with my lack of enthusiasm for Lonestar in general.