Country singer manfully fails to man up.
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[5.00]
Anthony Easton: Luke Bryan has a really charming, smooth voice — a voice that can’t go deep, and whose purpose mostly seems to work in favour of a kind of libertine pleasure. His best songs refuse depth, and are, frankly, kind of dumb. Good dumb, sexy dumb, marketable dumb — even when he tries for heartbreak, he never quite succeeds. This makes the cliches, the slight misogynist edge of this song, work even better. It’s not grown up, and it’s not quite the hangover of “Drunk On You,” but it might be the most complex thing he’s done.
[7]
Alfred Soto: Bryan sure loves his thick voice as much as ridiculous metaphors, and not once do the acoustics and steady plod interfere with the way he pledges his troth.
[7]
Iain Mew: The metaphors aren’t funny enough to soften how mean-spirited they are, but I could get round that if Bryan had gone in hard enough and really enjoyed being a childish dick. Instead he softens it into mush, calling her beautiful and pleading as to why she keeps showing up, and trying to have it both ways renders both sides of the song equally foul.
[2]
Brad Shoup: Luke, you could never kill my buzz! The structure’s the same as “Drunk on You” – one of this decade’s best, even if I blanked on my Pazz & Jop ballot. (I got it right with the Nashville Scene.) The first-verse similes are fantastic, the second verse total underclass tragedy. The subtle key change adds a grandeur, slapped down quickly, but this is an undermined relational vein. The band — with an alluring organ — putters in the background, in a holding pattern for karaoke treatment. “Those beers might as well’ve been poured out” — Luke, I feel you. Try to transition to the day shift.
[9]
Josh Langhoff: List song! These things always feel like they should be explaining their concepts to credulous kiddos via children’s albums — “Buzzkill” would fit neatly onto No Girls Allowed!, Fratbaby Lullabies, or Waaaaahhh! Look into Mr. Bryan’s eyes, children. Do you detect any glimmer of deprecating self-awareness? Or do they look as cold and dead as his poor drummer?
[3]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: The constant references to alcohol make me think that the female “buzzkill” Bryan’s focused on could purely be an unsubtle reference to alcoholic substances? He sure as hell doesn’t seem as interested in human beings as much as he is in six-packs of beer, making his ode to a brown haired and blue eyed femme fatale sound like he’s squinting at a bottle of Pabst. Go home Luke, you’re drunk on metaphors.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: Nice guitars, though Jake Owen would have done better with them. Bryan’s character could tell the girl to take a hike or switch to something harder; ah, but his voice makes it sound like he’s enjoying wallowing in the doldrums without admitting it might be within his own agency to get out. You know what to do to people like that and songs like this.
[4]
Jonathan Bogart: Yeah, we’ve all been in the situation. It’s a true dick who blames the other person, though.
[5]