Our perspectives on the new singles from Tanner Adell and Jordan Davis.
“Going Blonde”
Tanner Adell
Written by Tanner Adell
JK: There is not one thing about the title “Going Blonde” or the hilarious cover art for this single that prepared me for what Adell’s narrative is actually about here. Part of me was expecting a pointed jab at the genre’s current A-list, courtesy of one of the many talented WOC who’ve been marginalized.
Instead, this is a thoughtful and fascinating story about a young multiracial woman searching for her birth mother and, upon finding her, choosing instead to hold onto the woman she’d imagined as a child. There is a lot going on here, and it’s to Adell’s immense credit that she never once loses control of this story or lapses into either sentimentality or harsh judgment.
Because my brain is bad, I’ll note that the story arc here has at least some parallels to Britney Spears’ just godawful film, Crossroads. But Adell brings the authority of lived experience to this, in addition to the complexities of the ultimate decision-making that she describes. Adell isn’t necessarily a vocal powerhouse, but she’s well within her comfort zone here and delivers this story with a complete sense of agency. It’s her best work to date and a tremendous way to follow up her appearance on COWBOY CARTER. A
KJC: The way that children deal with the trauma of abandonment through active imagination is often forgotten by the time that they reach adulthood.
It’s extraordinary that Adell so deftly connects her processing of trauma during childhood to her processing of grief now, as she mourns a mother who never existed but brought her great comfort in her idealized form.
This is next level singing and songwriting from Adell, who is emerging as one of the most important voices on the country music landscape. A
“Bar None”
Jordan Davis
Written by Ben Johnson, Hunter Phelps, and Lydia Vaughan
KJC: Please no more puns with records built around them.
This feels like a song based entirely on a moment of clever wordplay, with the entire story constructed to make the title’s double meaning pay off.
It doesn’t, and all we’re left with is a dumb song that failed in its sole purpose, which wasn’t much to aspire to in the first place. D
JK: The first 15 seconds of this were super promising, with a nimbly-plucked guitar figure that actually set a cool, low-key tone. And then the snap track kicked in, and Davis started half-rapping or whatever, and this completely lost me.
There’s a decent melody in the chorus, and Davis sings it in tune, even if I couldn’t identify his voice among any of his contemporaries. The attempts at internal rhymes in the lyrics just set my teeth on edge for how they draw attention to themselves (“I’m gettin’ gone-er than your long-gone boots,” and please just GTFO), and I will never understand how Davis has sustained such a solidly B-list career to date. D
…so gloriously ott, the artist – so aptly delivered the song. ms. adell is spectacular (again).