…sure, we’ll take it.
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[6.29]
Edward Okulicz: You can play Modern Country Bingo with all the cliches in “Yours If You Want It” — it is after all, a sturdy, obvious stadium banger with absolutely no intention other to please. Wait, is “resemblance to ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’ by Bachman-Turner Overdrive” a square on your bingo card? If it is, you’ve definitely won this round.
[8]
Megan Harrington: It’s a mad lib country song where the writer filled every noun with the word “baby,” but “Yours If You Want It” is also romantic in its roller coaster cadences and constant escalation. Ballads live in the space between rote and familiar; Rascal Flatts play ping-pong at both ends of the table without ever hitting the net.
[7]
Hannah Jocelyn: I’m surprised “Life Is A Highway” never became a meme in the grand tradition of “All Star” — it’s from one of the most Dreamworks-y Pixar films, and it’s by a band that Bad Lip Reading already turned into a meme of sorts, so why not make “‘Life is a Highway’ but every time they say ‘all night long’ it switches to ‘We Are Number One'”? Instead of that fate, Rascal Flatts have quietly continued making albums, and now they’ve returned with something that sounds like it’s showing the rest of country radio how real over-processed country is done. In this song we have: Proudly Auto-Tuned harmonies! Shiny, stadium-y production! A twinkling piano in the background that kind of sounds like the Windows XP startup screen! The line “this beat up, banged up, scarred up heart”, which is basically a Rascal Flatts version of one of Matt Berninger’s best lines! So realizing I just wrote way more positive things about Rascal Flatts than I ever thought I would in my life, I need to give this an above-average score. (Though the score is also because that chorus is the best I’ve heard from a country song since at least “Snapback.”)
[7]
Katie Gill: Middle-of-the-road country music. I wouldn’t turn it off if it was on the radio but I wouldn’t actively seek it out either. The main problem is that Rascal Flatts has far too many lyrics to push into the meter. Multi-syllabic words like “yesterday” get awkwardly shoved into a two-syllable space in a song that seems purposefully designed to trip someone up at karaoke.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: The vocals try for carefree and nimble but only achieve half-assed and weighed down by Auto-Tune. The music is right out of your nearest megachurch band.
[4]
Alfred Soto: As smooth and soft as butter on hot Teflon, “Yours If Want It” could have been released in 1981 and competed with Melissa Manchester and Ronnie Milsap on the pop chart. Not this fast, though, and the singer wouldn’t get breathless singing outside his range.
[6]
David Sheffieck: Rascal Flatts’ sweet spot is high-melodrama cheese, and it’s often in ballad form and often too overwrought to tolerate. Here they bring that melodrama to bear on a track that chimes and chugs and pounds, a classic rock song in country wool. You can’t slow dance to it at your wedding with the spotlight on you, but there would be no shame in trying.
[7]