Fun fact: your editor is drunk right now.
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[4.83]
Vikram Joseph: We’ve all got our cheap musical thrills of choice, and sad, strung-out, reverb-y guitars have always done it for me, so this hooked me in from the first few notes — enough, even, to somewhat bypass my inherent queasiness about trad-country tropes like drinking whiskey to get over girls, and references to (forfucksake, it’s 2018) “good ol’ boys.” It’s also, oddly, in thrall to late-90s pop – the verse melody is a dead ringer for Robbie Williams’ “She’s The One” (though thankfully not as wet), and the whole song (but especially the line “[whiskey] ain’t doing what it should”) calls to mind another soft-rock duet entirely. The harmonies swell and soar, though, and the production’s good enough to distract from the tired sentiments.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Florida Georgia Line had a hand in writing this twangfest, in which Aldean growls through the boilerplate with conviction and to which Lambert contributes okay harmonies. Brantley Gilbert would have rocked this up, Lambert herself would have pathos-ed it up.
[5]
Iain Mew: Jack Daniel’s posters and their monochrome aw shucks appeals to authenticity have been the most annoying the Underground has to offer for years. I don’t know if its US ads take the same approach of cloying mythologising of those folks down in Lynchburg, Tennessee, but this song sure does it for them.
[5]
Stephen Eisermann: What was the point of including Miranda on this track? It’s still a boring vocal, bland instrumental, and average lyric, it just has Miranda collecting a quick check by upstaging Jason on the chorus.
[4]
Edward Okulicz: When I see Miranda Lambert’s name, I expect a certain high standard, and so to hear her doing backing vocals feels like I’m being denied something really good. The song that’s doing the denying is half a clever concept, half a decent chorus, half a convincing vocal performance. Tempting though it is to be savage for being denied more of Miranda, I’ll be fair and give it half the marks.
[5]
Juan F. Carruyo: A tear-in-my-scotch ditty beset by distracting electronic flourishes that may signify innovation for Aldean’s producer but sound awful and dated already. As much as I can sympathize for an alcoholic’s plight, there’s not enough detail in the lament to carry enough weight, just an overall sense of malaise. File this one under ‘bland.’
[4]