Single Reviews – Page 76 – Country Universe

Retro Single Review: Alan Jackson, “Dallas”

September 19, 2011 Sam Gazdziak 3

1991 | #1

No, this isn’t Alan Jackson covering The Flatlanders, although that would have been phenomenal. Rather, this is Jackson performing right in his sweet spot: a simple enough song, yet with some clever lyrics, a generous dose of pedal steel and Jackson’s typical smooth, agreeable vocals. “Dallas” may not be Jackson at his most experimental (see “I’ll Go On Loving You”) or mainstream (“Chattahoochee”), but it’s a pleasant little gem in a very rich catalog of music.

Single Review: Lucas Hoge, “Give a Damn”

September 18, 2011 Ben Foster 14

Did you wake up this morning thinking “Man, I would sure love to hear another song about being from the sticks in the backwoods, and not giving a damn what those stuck-up city folks think?”

Retro Single Review: Tim McGraw, “All I Want is a Life”

September 17, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 1

1996 | Peak: #5

Tim goes gritty on the third single and namesake of his 1995 set All I Want.

He sings as forcefully as his young voice will let him, but the rough edges aren’t quite there, so he doesn’t quite pull it off.

Retro Single Review: Dolly Parton, “Mule Skinner Blues (Blue Yodel No. 8)”

September 17, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 2

1970 | Peak: #3

This yodel-laden cover of an early country music standard gave Parton her highest charting single to date, with or without Porter.

Retro Single Review: Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton, “Tomorrow is Forever”

September 5, 2011 Kevin John Coyne 7

1970 | Peak: #9

Another one of their matronly love songs.

“Tomorrow is Forever” has a few glorious moments in the chorus, where the melody swills like the best early Tammy Wynette records, but the rest of the record goes on forever.

Retro Single Review: Tim McGraw, “Can’t Be Really Gone”

September 2, 2011 Leeann Ward 6

Despite the dated keys, light swells of synthesizers and layered background vocals, “Can’t Be Really Gone” manages to be McGraw’s most compelling single to that point in his career both in content and performance.

Single Review: Lady Antebellum, “We Owned the Night”

August 30, 2011 Dan Milliken 15

Give them a good hook, as in “Need You Now” or “Just a Kiss,” and they’re blandly pleasant. Take away the hook and they’re just straight bland.

Single Review: Eric Church, “Drink in My Hand”

August 28, 2011 Dan Milliken 6

This rocks – and, in its own way, countries – harder than anything else out there. Church navigates it with the ease of a NASCAR driver on a suburban highway, weaving and bobbing so charismatically that Luke, Blake and Dierks start to seem like uptight party-poopers by comparison. You believe him on multiple levels when he hollers that he’s “about to tear a new one in this old town.”

Retro Single Review: George Strait, “Right Or Wrong”

August 28, 2011 Ben Foster 1

1984 | Peak: #1

It started out as a foxtrot jazz ballad written in 1921. It become a Western Swing standard thanks to Bob Wills, and then in 1984 George Strait made it into a chart-topping country hit.

Retro Single Review: Dolly Parton, “Daddy Come and Get Me”

August 27, 2011 Ben Foster 2

1970 | Peak: #40

It’s interesting to note the stark contrast between the uplifting “glass-half-full”-type songs Dolly often favors today with the much darker fare she often recorded in the sixties and seventies. “Daddy Come and Get Me” is one of Dolly’s most thematically-distinct story-songs, telling of a woman placed in a mental institution by her cheating husband.