Single Review – Just a Kiss – Lady Antebellum

13 years ago Liv Carter 1

With their new release, ‘Just a Kiss,’ Lady Antebellum moves beyond the extremely successful ‘Need You Now’ and looks toward their upcoming third album. Following a ballad (‘Hello World’) with a ballad, releasing one as a summer single, and choosing a slow song as an album’s lead-off single are all generally not done so it comes as a bit of a surprise that this piano pop ballad gets to start the countdown to the new record.

The subject matter is brand new love, more specifically letting your mind rule your heart and resisting temptation to let the budding love move too fast. Hillary’s performance reflects this combination of excitement and vulnerability very well; a combination echoed by the uncomplicated piano and string arrangement.

New love should be a bottomless well of songwriting inspiration and if you mention this song was written from personal experience, I do expect more from the lyrics than uncreative phrases such as ‘it’s never felt so real/it’s never felt so right’. Nowhere in the song are there enough details to lift the people involved above just another generic couple in a song.

With repeated listens, the production does start sounding better mainly because producer Paul Worley resisted breaking out the melodramatics and instead leaves Charles and Hillary’s interpretations to do the bulk of the storytelling.

This is by no means terrible and Hillary’s vocals almost tipped this over to ‘approved’ but in the end ‘Just a Kiss’ simply does not bring enough to the table.

Liv Carter

Liv Carter

Liv is a career coach for creatives, and the people who work with them.
She holds several certificates from Berklee College of Music, and a certificate in Positive Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Her main influences are coffee, cats, and Alexander Hamilton.
Liv Carter

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