Like a tomato and a lot of lettuce…
[Video][Website]
[3.45]
John Seroff: Luke Combs is the preeminent standard bearer of a kind of signifier country that offers recitation of moon/June/spoon banalities and brand-specific, Southern-living accoutrements as proof of simple-folk authenticity. “Better Together” is stripped down to that dubious style’s bare bones; the chief pleasures any listener who is not a member of either the groom or the bride’s party may find in it are the foghorn valleys and raspy bugle of Combs’ voice. That ain’t nothing, but it also ain’t enough to make “Together” much more than a huge jukebox hit that a lot of good ol’ boys will take advantage of to get another round and hit the john.
[4]
Crystal Leww: The continuous, existential debate about whether or not country music should sound like Luke Combs and Chris Stapleton vs. Sam Hunt and Kane Brown will rage on, in the same way that we’ll always have debates about poptimism. It comes down to personal preference as much as anything, and “Better Together” is Luke Combs’s take on a tried-and-true country trope: a stripped-back wife guy song. There’s nothing here but a piano and Combs’s voice, which makes the lyrics easy to follow. But country is a genre that places a heavy emphasis on storytelling, and Luke Combs just lists things that country dudes think that go together. Personally, I would be kinda annoyed if my partner wrote me a love song that compared our relationship to Coke cans and BB guns. Y’all really wanna tell me that the “dumb” bro country guys didn’t do this better?
[3]
Thomas Inskeep: Balladry is not Combs’ strongest suit, and while he sounds great on “Better Together,” the song is too spare; a more fleshed-out arrangement would’ve benefited the relatively simple song. And what’s the deal with the lyric “What’s the point of this old guitar/If it ain’t got no strings” on a song that doesn’t even feature a guitar?
[4]
Tim de Reuse: This tune highlights how Luke Combs desperately needs a full band behind him to make the obscene strains of his performance the least bit palatable. As a mythology of a heterosexual exurban marriage in the American South, though, it knows exactly what it wants to do and does it quite efficiently. This would earn it a few extra bonus points if that were a thing worth doing.
[2]
Nortey Dowuona: Lilting pianos are dragged in by Luke Combs, in 232, where he has laid down his weapons and is ready to surrender to the woods. As he walks into the acid, he is surprised that it has not burned him. He continues to walk, waiting for an arrow in his neck, but everyone is just celebrating the end of the Civil War, so he keeps walking. He sits in an abandoned Starbucks, looking at all the empty places he and his wife would find pastries to briefly joke about buying. He walks to the pier, watching the last of the Irish pick up and depart. He looks up and sees his wife, blinks, and before he can think, she has swept him up in the strongest hug she can. They weep in each other’s arms, then finally head to the boat, but before he can board, his heart convulses, and he falls.
[8]
Alfred Soto: As simple as a cup of cawfee and an old geetar, “Better Together” lets Luke Combs pour his sincere pre-fab feelings over a piano. Some listeners will appreciate the effort during the holidays: I’ve been known to.
[4]
Katie Gill: I guess Luke Combs saw all that money in first-dance wedding songs and went “oh, hey, I can fart something out that’ll fit the bill. I’ll do it with a basic piano accompaniment to make it real nice and smooth and danceable.” This is so transparently rural noun, simple adjective that it doesn’t make me mad. It just makes me tired. We’ve had so many good country songs out this year, and yet I know this is going to get ten billion plays on country radio.
[2]
Edward Okulicz: It seems like Luke Combs became the biggest guy going in country completely without warning, so playing on the zeigeist is commercial jackpot. I can’t deny that hearing this song on the first day I was able to cross over the “ring of steel” that had walled residents of my city inside, I nodded my head and went “yeah!” to myself at the thought of togetherness. But that reflection was as cliched as the song is — I guess I’m just as bad as Luke Combs is for smelling what he dealt.
[5]
Alex Clifton: I thought this was a bit maudlin and awful (albeit better on 1.25x speed on YouTube — come on, Luke, pick up the pace a bit and sound happy when you’re in love), but then he used the wrong “you’re” in the lyric video MULTIPLE TIMES, and that made me hate it even more.
[2]
Iain Mew: It’s a clever move to write a song that acts as an excuse for its own dull falling into expected lines (like a needle in a groove!). I wish he went all out and sang “like clichés and a ballad” though.
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: Did we need the Duke Cannon version of Wicked‘s “For Good“?
[1]