Single Review – This Is Country Music – Brad Paisley

13 years ago Liv Carter 1

The frustrating thing about Brad Paisley has always been his single choices. For every ‘Welcome to the Future’ he manages to release an ‘I’m Still a Guy.’ At the recent CMA Awards, Brad debuted a new song, ambitiously titled ‘This Is Country Music.’

Since it has been made available, I have with each listen found new things to take issue with. The song opens with the line ‘You’re not supposed to say the word cancer in a song’. Says who? And I know a few pop and rock songs that do. It goes on ‘Telling folks that Jesus is the answer can rub them wong.’ Well, yes, people are entitled to hold other beliefs. It doesn’t improve from there with nothing mentioned in the second verse being unique to country music at all. And if country is about the fans, why aren’t they mentioned? The third verse is a format-pandering mention of the military with the same lack of any depth of the unnecessary breakdown in Zac Brown Band‘s ‘Chicken Fried.’

A summing up of country cliches wrapped in a neo-traditionalist arrangement, ‘This Is Country Music’ succeeds in showcasing a big problem in country today – lazy writing. The mere mention of a tractor, mama, Jesus and the troops does not a country song make. The whole thing is made worse by a shameless summing up of some truly great country songs which have stood the test of time. Compared to those, ‘This Is Country Music’ cannot even put it’s toes on the line.

As a little puff piece at the CMA Awards it was ok (just) but as a single this is just too weak. Though, clearly, this will fly to #1 at country radio.

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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