Today in “country singers with two first names”…
[Video][Website]
[4.43]
Isabel Cole: A paean to a wild child that has not a hint of wildness in it, but still fails to convince us that he is in fact the only thing she needs right now, coming across instead like a dude whose bros are exchanging concerned or skeptical looks behind his back. It made me nostalgic for when la chica loca roofied Ricky Martin; at least that song (1) committed to the bit, and (2) slapped.
[3]
Alfred Soto: “She snaps her fingers and a drink comes”? I’ll return my gay papers for the sake of dating this miracle worker. Seriously, though: that Bryan didn’t go full Dua Lipa disco is its cardinal offense.
[3]
Katie Gill: Even as someone who loves Luke Bryan’s cornball nonsense… this ain’t it, y’all. Yet again, we have another song that’s all “look at this amazing woman, I’ve got no idea why she loves me and my totally normal, less amazing self.” It’s pure wish fulfillment, which normally I’d be fine with (though really, mass culture has been “straight white men wish fulfillment” for the past how many years now?), but it’s pure wish fulfillment from a genre that just keeps giving us those same wishes regurgitated and wrapped up with a new bow on a new plate. Luke Bryan can and has done better than this.
[4]
Alex Clifton: I’m so mad because I’ve held a grudge against Bryan since “rain makes corn, corn makes whisky, whisky makes my baby feel a little frisky,” and yet this song doesn’t entirely suck! Bryan is awfully confident that he is what this girl wants (the video seems to disprove that theory in a delightful twist) but the confidence here sells the song rather than making it another arrogant anthem for dudes who think they’re God’s gift to all the women in the club. It sounds like he actually knows what she wants because he’s listened to her and is extremely pleased to be her target. It’s a low bar, but hearing a guy sing about actually letting a woman run the show with her own desires — especially in a song that’s got some smoulder like this one — is really hot.
[5]
Thomas Inskeep: “She gets what she wants/And I get to be what she wants tonight” is a great lyric, and frankly, this kind of thing is Bryan’s métier. I also like that, where I might expect a song with this subject to be more of a slow-dance number, this is insistently uptempo country-rock. Bryan’s not the most creative superstar, but when he’s doing something this precisely in his wheelhouse, I’ve gotta say, he does it well.
[7]
Kylo Nocom: “She don’t take no and I love” is frustratingly missing a syllable (“it!”) and that ruins what would otherwise be fine, dumb fun.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: The track is predictably burly, the words less so. But the country market has a far lower tolerance for explicit lyrics than a song like “What She Wants Tonight” calls for; the result is a form of sexiness without the spirit, awkward “Shape of You” territory. But then again, given the lines that are here, i.e., “she don’t take no and I love it,” perhaps that’s for the best.
[5]