Single Reviews – Page 66 – Country Universe

Single Review: Chris Young, "Neon"

May 19, 2012 Tara Seetharam 16

Chris Young’s third single off of Neon continues to position him as an artist with a skill so few of his contemporaries possess: the ability to gracefully tread the line between vintage and current.

It’s easy to compare this title track to Brooks & Dunn’s dance hall classic, for example, but Young’s ode to a bar has legs all its own. “Neon” puts a different spin on melancholy – less aching and more content in defeat. If there’s a broken heart in the mix, Young’s too deep into his sweet escape (on the rocks) to care.

Single Review: The Mavericks, "Born to Be Blue"

May 18, 2012 Dan Milliken 6

Oh HELL yeah.

Single Review: Kristen Kelly, &quot;Ex-Old Man&quot;

May 12, 2012 Ben Foster 15

Does country radio still have room for a song about drinkin’ and cheatin’? How about one sung by a female artist?

Single Review: Lady Antebellum, "Wanted You More"

May 8, 2012 Ben Foster 25

So let’s talk about hooks and melodies for a minute.

Single Review: Blake Shelton, "Over"

May 6, 2012 Kevin John Coyne 16

This one’s a dead ringer for one of those nineties lukewarm rock ballads. You know the kind.

A faceless band with a generic frontman singing a plaintive love song that relies on pounding guitars for its intensity. It’s their one hit that gets played everywhere, but nobody buys the album because it’s just going to pop up on some late-night hits collection anyway.

Retro Single Review: Alan Jackson, "(Who Says) You Can't Have it All"

April 29, 2012 Leeann Ward 3

1993 | Peak: #4

“(Who Says) You Can’t Have It All” is not just an average song of lost love. Rather, the loss translates into a certain resolution from a man who is the lord and master of his proverbial castle that has turned into nothing more than a lonely room with “a ceiling, a floor and four walls”, full of pictures and memories of the broken past.

Single Review: Little Big Town, "Pontoon"

April 29, 2012 Dan Milliken 12

This new Little Big Town single sounds cool. Surprise? Nah – they always sounded cool with Wayne Kirkpatrick producing, and new helmsman Jay Joyce brings the same quirky groove-sense he brought to Eric Church’s Chief. It’s a good sonic match.

Retro Single Review: Shania Twain, "Rock This Country!"

April 28, 2012 Ben Foster 1

2000 | #30

The eleventh single from Shania Twain’s Come On Over was one of the least successful in the U.S., barely scraping the bottom of the Top 30. This was due in part to a lack of promotion for the single, though it did go Top 5 in Twain’s native Canada. In some ways, “Rock This Country!” comes across as a standard Twain up-tempo – peppy, with a fun Mutt Lange-style pop-country production, but the lyrics are surprisingly flavorless.

Single Review: Keith Urban, “For You”

April 25, 2012 Kevin John Coyne 12

I want to like this a lot more than I actually do.

“For You” does well enough for what it is, even though the production is a bit overblown, in a Bryan Adams kinda way. Urban is typically sincere, and there are some good attempts at pathos.

Single Review: George Strait, "Drinkin' Man"

April 22, 2012 Kevin John Coyne 17

More than thirty years into his legendary career, George Strait has released the most compelling single of his career with “Drinkin’ Man.”