Getting not another dime from the Jukebox, baby…
[Video][Website]
[3.50]
Oliver Maier: The problem with trying to parody radio country music is that there is literally no limit to how stupid the real thing is willing to be.
[2]
Katherine St Asaph: A hunk of over-fried steak, but extra point because if this were a Train song they would have gone the extra country mile and sampled one of the children’s choir songs by this name. Wait, I don’t know if that’s extra or deducted.
[5]
Alfred Soto: FGL couldn’t have known when they recorded a song with this title that instead of a clenched fist it turned into a middle finger — from a valentine to a rebuke. The meatball riff hearkens back not just to hair metal but to a moment when people huddled as if for warmth around these useful fictions.
[3]
Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Even if this didn’t sound like a shameless attempt at pandering, the lyrics would still be awkward. “I love my country and I love my country up loud” as a hook makes no kind of sense grammatically or metaphorically, and is sung with the blind enthusiasm of a band that doesn’t really seem to care.
[3]
Katie Gill: Me, before clicking this song: Please dear God let it be about country music and not some sort of godawful “God Bless the USA Pt. 2”. Thankfully, it isn’t a second round of putting a boot in someone’s ass. Unfortunately, it’s yet another list of rural Americana cliches. Goddammit modern country music, how often are you going to make me link the Bo Burnham bit.
[2]
Thomas Inskeep: When it comes to this kind of bullshit jingoism, FGL do it well; they’re made for this. This isn’t exactly great, but it plays to their strengths, such as they are. And I like the contrast of the banjo and the stupid-cranked guitar solo. I know this is dumb, I know this is lowest common denominator, but yet something about it grabs me. I don’t love “I Love My Country,” but I (slightly ashamedly) do like it.
[6]