If you seek Haley…
[Video]
[5.75]
Katherine St Asaph: Haley Georgia: not since Lady Antebellum has a country artist’s name been so on-the-nose. I know it’s her middle name but one can’t help but spin off hypothetical copycats: Savannah Birmingham, Lyndsey Alabama, Hannah Montana. Which is apt, because “Ridiculous” sounds like what’d happen if Miley, or perhaps Kesha, had come down the pageant-Idol-Nashville pipeline instead of taking her dreams (and a cardigan) to Hollywood: guitar picked until it shines, a crowd whoa-ing through a beefy chorus, country-radio vocal processing, voice and lyrical gimmick somewhere between drawl and Igloo. It seemed like “Ridiculous” should’ve been more surprising until I realized this is exactly the amount of surprising you get post-Idol.
[4]
Josh Langhoff: Georgia, a former Idol contestant who praises Iggy Azalea and Patty Griffin in the same breath, summons the title pun like Jack and Rose summoned their obnoxious loogies, giving exuberant voice to everyone’s anti-asshole impulse. Produced by Luke Dick [collapses into gale of giggles], the result truly sounds like shit: a trebly, ear-splitting, demo-worthy, loudness-warring, clipped-vocal, unapologetically mechanized glob. The song’s vitriol extends to the self-proclaimed guardians of trad country music. If I wrote for Saving Country Music — i.e., if Saving Country Music didn’t keep sending me rejections and restraining orders — I might consider “Ridiculous” the Donald Trump of modern country, laying bare the sins of its bro-country cohort with shameless candor. This just makes “Ridiculous” funnier and, because it’s a song and not a racist demagogue, more exciting. I wanna hear what Haley Georgia can get away with next.
[8]
Alfred Soto: Football chants, boom boom clap, mixing board manipulations — this American Idol contestant loves Taylor Swift and Big & Rich, singing in a molasses-thick accent with sticky vowels that gum up the works on the “ridic” hook.
[7]
Ramzi Awn: Georgia’s downfall is that she isn’t quite as ridiculous as Taylor Swift.
[3]
Anthony Easton: I was amused by the camp dismissal of what is sold as every country boy’s desire — and how it burlesques both themes and musical cues. This would have been devastating a couple of years ago, but is now simply amusing.
[7]
Brad Shoup: True dirtbag pop: a middle finger extended while limping away, an asinine wisecrack resounding cinematically in a ringing skull. Georgia has no interest in a standard country register: she’s got a sideways delivery, the sound of mouthing off to friends with your target almost in earshot. The song pings from A to B-minus with ease: the whole trebly wreckage is buried under the vocals.
[3]
Jonathan Bradley: A cool prank to play on one of your friends is to say you’re inducting them into the Pen Fifteen Club. “Pen 15,” you write on his or her hand to certify admission. Now you get all the fun of explaining the gag.
[5]
Will Adams: “You’re a dick, you’re a dick, you’re ridiculous,” Haley Georgia chortles while elbowing you in the ribs incessantly. Yes, I get the joke, but telling it in a voice that’s the midpoint of Iggy and Amy Heidemann kinda sucks out any potential fun.
[4]
Rebecca A. Gowns: On first blush, it appears to be Kidz Bop Iggy Azalea, but as the song continues it’s clear this is more in the vein of late ’90s inane white rap than it is 2010s era of pure appropriative rap. The joke of the chorus has already been done at least once before, but there’s a kind of jokey trashy sense of fun that pervades and makes this one the smallest bit salvageable. Just the smallest bit!
[3]
Iain Mew: The thing about “Ridiculous” is that there’s a strong and hooky song there even leaving aside its captivating gimmick. The smart verses are Haley Georgia’s statement of command before the chorus brings the swelling in-the-moment thrill that country songs about checking someone out and dancing real close tend to aim for, even through its layer of bitterness. Then, stitched into the gaps afforded by all of that, there’s the Ebeneezer Goode chant that has me grinning right through. It’s playful but thick with with powerful contempt — in this case ridicule is something to be scared of.
[8]
Jonathan Bogart: It’s unfortunate that a song that would be so satisfyingly tooth-grindingly annoying to people who take themselves too seriously is not getting the chance to expose itself to more victims.
[8]
Edward Okulicz: Pitched exactly halfway between Kesha’s hot-and-botheredness of “Your Love is My Drug” and Katy Perry’s bitch opus “Waking Up In Vegas,” this is hugely silly, but raucous and endearing at the same time. “Ridiculous” revels in its juvenile wordplay but doesn’t lean too much on it — the whole thing is hooky and the attitude sells it. My one gripe is the ugly, loud production — the country-dance-pop hybrid is a genre in evolution, but a quick A-B with say, Sam Hunt’s “House Party” just makes this sound hamfisted. But “Ridiculous” is snotty enough to overcome that — now can we please get Kesha out of contract hell and into country heaven?
[7]
Mo Kim: A song that would have been fatally nondescript in the wrong hands, “Ridiculous” is elevated by a good performer and great production. Georgia has Kesha’s nasally snarl down to an art, and I can easily hear the hook coming out of my roommates’ mouths. I find myself most moved, however, by the way those guitar plucks at the beginning warble like something out of a scratched ’90s home video, like Georgia’s taking country’s tired old refrains and cackling over them. It laces the sweetness of nostalgia with a hint of subversion, and “Ridiculous” is better for it.
[6]
Patrick St. Michel: The first listen through “Ridiculous,” and I was thinking how awkward that hook sounded after a relatively familiar-but-radio-catchy verse, like Haley Georgia ruined a pleasant bit of country pop for a joke. But each subsequent lesson reveals that it’s actually the parts that could have come from anyone else in Nashville that are safe and boring, while her kiss-off hook is the most memorable bit here. I wish she would do that faux rap more and cut out the part I can hear in any other country song.
[6]
Megan Harrington: Country is not often bad on purpose. Even Florida Georgia Line stack their hits with walls of guitar to balance their exceedingly individual vocal stylings. Haley Georgia offers no concessions to listeners. At times she sounds like she’s singing in vocal fry, the balance to this grating and alienating choice is a synthetic mandolin. It’s a hard first listen, but increasingly human. I don’t, in my day to day life, walk around with the confidence of Carrie Underwood, the knowledge that if done wrong I can summon hellfire and brimstone and a Louisville slugger to rectify the situation. I feel more like Haley Georgia, thunderstruck by the what-the-fuckness and the how-did-this-happen. Frankly, I think Hank Williams was a little closer to “Ridiculous” when he wrote “Your Cheating Heart” than he was to, say, “Give Me Back My Hometown.”
[8]
Crystal Leww: I follow a Spotify playlist that aggregates songs from up-and-coming country artists. You can write your think piece about the state of women on country music, but I’m surprised by how a major channel for young female country artists seems to be reality singing competitions. From Lauren Alaina to Sarah Ross to Danielle Bradbery to Raelynn, there’s clearly some sort of appetite by those audiences for young women who can do a mean Carrie Underwood impression. I am mildly intrigued by several of these artists: I feel like they’re all fairly talented vocally, but most of them have a hard time separating themselves from the pack, putting together a cohesive sound, and more importantly, are just unpolished. Haley Georgia’s “Ridiculous” leans heavily on a cute little pun that relies on how the beginning of “ridiculous” sounds like “a dick,” and a vocal delivery that is more Kesha than Carrie. It’s adorable and piques my interest, but in a year where there is an abundance of young country women that are polished and differentiated enough to already be straight-up stars, I have no need for these cutesy antics.
[5]