Call this a do-over. Don’t stuff this one up, Paisley.
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[5.50]
Alfred Soto: Thanks to “The One with LL Cool J,” I turn to “Beat This Summer” breathing a louder sigh of relief. I’m tempted to overrate this typical evocation of Paisleyean pleasure, where a kiss sounds like a fleet-fingered guitar solo and Paisley’s voice is as cool as a pair of Wayfarers. Like any sun-kissed idyll though it goes on too long.
[7]
Patrick St. Michel: Stephen Colbert made a joke last week about “Accidental Racist,” managing to unite people of all backgrounds to hate that horrible song, which, fair enough. But I pine for the alternate universe where anyone in the Brad Paisley machine slaps him when he suggests sharing his awkward Starbucks experience with the world. “Hey dummy, you got ‘This Summer’ coming out soon, let that bring people together.” This touches on themes that everyone should be able to relate to — summer love, the impermanence of everything, how flipping great the summer is (you like winter, get the hell out of here). Paisley actually sounds like a smitten dude rather than a counselor when he sings “hourglass,” and the whole song finds a good balance between country twang and warm-weather pop. Paisley has a long long way to go before he shakes himself of that other song — as it should be, geez what a nightmare that was — but dude is still super talented and this one is going straight on the summer-jams playlist.
[8]
Anthony Easton: The thing with Lee Brice or Luke Bryan or Justin Moore or Ashley Monroe or Carrie Underwood or Blake Shelton or even Kacey Musgraves — when they sing something that is ostensibly pleasurable, it doesn’t sound obligatory. Even with something like “Mud on the Tires”, Paisley sounds like he’s working rather than playing.
[3]
Josh Langhoff: The trouble with Up is there’s always a Down, but just to be clear: when I criticized Paisley’s self-production of The Song That Shall Not Be Named, I was referring solely to the editorial guidance a producer provides. In terms of sheer sonics, though, nobody in 2013 beats what Paisley does with “Beat This Summer.” He can re-ascend his pedestal for orchestrating all the band’s little staccato elements into a groove, along with obligatory cries of “whoa” and a lead guitar as effortless as his fingers tracing yours atop some carnival ride, during those moments of mirth and jitters just before the fall. One of his best.
[9]
Sabina Tang: And four months later she died of typhus in Corfu.
[5]
Ian Mathers: He’s vastly overrated as a melodicist/songwriter, his actual voice is as anodyne as his metaphorical one (who gives an actual fuck about tanlines? That line signifies something much nastier than he thinks it does, or maybe something much nastier than he’s relying on it being taken as), and the guitar solo here feels bizarrely out of place. He’s the bland, “acceptable,” “skillful,” “charming” face of hegemonic New Country and his singles are almost worse just for being so ignorably radio-ready.
[2]
David Lee: Holy hell, there have not even been five days of consistently spring-like weather where I live, and yet Brad Paisley’s already moping about like Billy Joe Armstrong on “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” But then, this could be a memory, a song Paisley scrawled on a napkin in a diner after a near-utopian summer. If I had to make a bet, though, I would say Brad was drinking watery coffee and eating plain toast when he wrote this, because only in that context does this ode to a supposedly passionate summer seem anything other than terribly bland.
[3]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: I didn’t write about “Accidental Racist” because I decided to opt out and not listen to “Accidental Racist”. And I still haven’t heard “Accidental Racist” because I consider myself an adult that can make decisions as to how I should properly misspend my time. So does Brad Paisley, a forty year-old man who sings sweetly about summer romances as though he’s falling for the first time. This is not how men his age should act, but he lends “Beat This Summer” a gentle bittersweetness, accepting the ephemeral quality of summer affairs whilst reminding himself that he’s experiencing one. If his vocal performance doesn’t let himself enjoy the sensation enough, he lets joy boil over into guitar histrionics: slide guitars on the chorus skittering along like heartbeats, guitar solos working as bursts of giddy sunshine.
[7]
Brad Shoup: A minute shorter and this could’ve been his great pop moment. Here is one of his more nagging melodies — Top 40 cadence on a small melodic seesaw — seeded with stuttering steel, banjo earworms, and we-are-young howling. A singer half his age would be stuck on the endless summer; I’m sure the counterpoint would be a welcome shock. He doesn’t have enough lift for the chorus, but on the bridge, his yelp is a major plus. But yeah, this is too long. We get it: you solo.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: This would be excellent — as a demo. For Taylor Swift, three albums ago.
[5]