Hey there! Thanks for coming by to check out part 2 of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly… a list of 5 new country music videos. You can read my original post here which includes the videos from Cody Johnson, Scotty McCreery, Conner Smith, Chase Matthew, and Kenny Chesney. Today they’ll be divided up into the good, the bad, and the ugly. Away we go!
The Good. Two music videos land in this category. First is Cody Johnson “The Painter”… a really cute story about a couple falling in love. I like the song except that I think there’s a risk in raising someone up on a pedestal like the lyricist does. “I thank God every day for how He made her.” No one likes everything about everyone. Praising someone so highly only sets them up for failure when they have a moment of imperfection (not living up to their partner’s unrealistic expectations). But this one still lands in the good because as far as love songs go, it’s sweet.
The second video is Conner Smith and Hailey Whitters with “Roulette On The Heart.” Actually, this is my favorite song on the entire list. The verse phrasing and the delivery of the rhymes (verse 1: “Trigger” and “with her”), plus the pleasant combination of the distinct voices work together to make this song really enjoyable. The line “Loving you, baby, is flippin’ off the safety, livin’ on a maybe” is a vivid metaphor, easy to understand especially in the pro-2nd Amendment south. Pew pew! The video is rather bland but definitely doesn’t take away from the give and take of the song. In fact, going back and forth between the two singers matches the push and pull of the lyrics.
The Bad. There are also two entries in this category. It’s not that they’re entirely bad but there were plenty of eye-rolls as I watched each one. First up is Chase Matthew “We All Grow Up.” Right off the bat in the first 10 seconds there’s that echo effect so often heard in soft, boyfriend country type songs and I despise it. The lyrics include generic small-town (dare I say redneck?) themes like chasing them daisy dukes… made a little trouble had a lot of fun… round here we’re proud of the way we live… party round a fire… and on and on. Somewhere in Nashville, Jason Aldean is proud and Tyler Childers is livid. I’d say, though, that verse 2 is an exception since it’s clever and mostly stays away from the country clichés. I also don’t like the incongruence of the chorus– past tense and present tense in the same sentence!? “We all settled down and we all grow up.” Why not just say “we all grew up” and make that the title of the song? It’s almost as annoying as Reba’s “Seven Minutes In Heaven.”
Kenny Chesney’s “Take Her Home” is somewhere between the good and the bad but what swayed my decision is the lack of emotion in the video. I would’ve liked a more simple, obvious storyline visualized without the excessive editing. Instead of drawing me in, the abstract clips of stars and roads and slowly tracking around the couple in the truck only served to disconnect me from any heartfelt moments shared between the lovebirds. Bottom line: I couldn’t feel it and I wanted to feel it. With that said, the third verse was nice, reminding me a lot of Kip Moore’s “Hey Pretty Girl” (which is a great song, by the way).
The Ugly. If you’ve done the math, you know there’s only one music video left for this category. I guess it’s possible to give the song some credit for a clever title along with the lyrics “drinking cab in a Solo, solo in the cab of my truck,” but there’s a continuity error (not in the sense of a mistake in a movie, as the phrase is often used) in what we’re hearing and what we’re seeing for Scotty McCreery’s “Cab In A Solo.” Whoever thought it was a good idea to put together a montage of concert footage, recording studio clips, and Scotty’s newborn as the visualizer for a break-up song should be fired (not in the sense of losing their job, as the phrase is often used) but hey guy, you’re fired! Go sit at your desk and think about your life decisions. The video adds absolutely nothing to the song when there was a great opportunity for some light-hearted fun with a few good actors. Think about a guy trying to return a bottle of wine to a grocery store. Sitting at a bar crying wildly. Sitting in his truck drinking at a park while other happy people throw frisbees, enjoy picnics, fly kites. All the stuff he’s not doing because he’s a loser (in his mind). I watched this video again and now I’m just angry. It doesn’t suck, but it sucks as a video for this song. Today, it’s the ugly.
-Out of the Wilderness
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