See, we thought we’d been dead clever finding a picture of him without a hat on, but then we cropped it and had to miss the top of his head off anyway. DAMN YOU, PAISLEY! DAMMMMMN YOUUUUUU!!!…

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[5.00]

Martin Skidmore: A rather quiet and restrained number, mostly acoustic, a father imagining his impending son being like him, running through the troubles he had. They’re actually rather too generic and minor to have much impact, and it ends on a rather self-satisfied note, but it’s a pleasant enough listen along the way.
[5]

Alfred Soto: From John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy” to Madonna’s “Little Star,” the star writing a song to a child has worked both as gift and acknowledgment of narcissism: the child usually serves as a reflection of qualities the star most loves about him or herself. Since Paisley is among our least narcissistic stars, the acoustic arrangement here reflects his fondness for the days when he played with Tonka trucks while the tug in his voice indicates how this could be as dangerous as climbing trees too tall. In other words, Paisley wishes his kid won’t cause as many sleepless nights as he did to his own parents. I could do without his kid piping up at the end though.
[7]

Anthony Easton: The sheer gender norming of this song bugs the fuck out of me, and I know it’s my politics that are getting in the way of a perfectly decent track, but the automatic tenderness of a boy who may end up being any number of things that do not feature a cliched list of masculine signifers is a disappointment. I keep thinking — what happens if he is not butch like his father; if he likes a doll more then a Tonka truck, or if he just wants to sit in the corner and read comic books, or if his first love is a boy? Paisley’s nostalgia is often sadder, and more complicated than other people hoeing this particular field, but for all of the skill and beauty of the guitar and the burnished walnut of his voice, I cannot get past the song’s lyrics.
[6]

Zach Lyon: Let’s get the bad out of the way first: that last word. That episode of The Simpsons can pull it off; Paisley can’t. The good: you can just skip that part, and everything else about this is engineered to make me love it. The violin and mandolin parts are perfectly subtle and gorgeous, along with the occasional backing vocals. I’m predisposed to love country songs written from the perspective of a parent, so I’m probably biased enough to get over the cheese (and the lingering thoughts that Paisley’s son might end up preferring theatre or a Warcraft addiction to melting Tonka trucks and football). But the real hook here is the bit complexity of Paisley’s character, the balance between his newborn anxiety and the pride he takes in his own youth. It’s harmless and light, but anything deeper than that would be too much.
[9]

Chuck Eddy: Pisses me off, since it assumes a dad’s son would be more “like” said dad than a daughter, which is a really ignorant bias to begin somebody’s life with. Still, Brad does allow “if”, I guess. And, as a dad of two sons who’s lived the payback that Brad speaks of, and a sucker for Brad’s jangling melodies lately, I’m moved regardless. Also, with Blake Shelton & Miranda Lambert’s “Draggin’ The River”, this is part of the encouraging recent trend of country singles that refer to penises.
[7]

Josh Langhoff: This ode to young rapscallionism begs the question: Why can’t we say “penis” in a country song? Ideally it’s not a question that needs begging. Maybe the sonogram scene is a tribute to Paisley’s trademark journalistic eye — do real sonogram doctors say “penis” or do they simply point to the screen and say something cute like “that thang”? I can’t remember (“There’ll be a freeness / To that boy’s penis / If he’s anything like me”). Despite having a boy who does Boy Things, I feel no emotional connection to this song, maybe because the Boy Things he does aren’t all sub-Tom Sawyer placeholders.
[3]

Asher Steinberg: What will Brad’s son be like? Well, he’ll ride his bike too fast. He’ll, I kid you not, “throw a ball”. Throw a ball! What else do you think he’ll do, Brad? Eat? Sleep? Avail himself of the bathroom 2-3 times a day? Tell me, I’m all ears. At first when I heard about all the manly activities little Bradley was a-gonna do, my reaction was, “what if he’s gay? Ever think about that?” But would you believe it, Brad’s got that base covered, because he’s described Baby Brad’s future love interest in gender-neutral terms. And that doesn’t even get to the sappy ending, where Brad fake-humbly acknowledges that there are worse folks to be “anything like” than a guy who’s had a dozen #1 singles and sold over 10 million records. Or the scene with the doctor. Whole essays, no, whole books could be written about the vomit-inducing pause at 0:29.
[1]

Jonathan Bogart: Really, Brad? Heaven help you because the outer limit of your parental anxiety is skipping class and getting a speeding ticket? Your nightmares are as boring as your fantasies.
[1]

John Seroff: A great deal of Paisley’s appeal is based on inclusion; he likes to tell jokes nearly everyone can get and stories that border on the universal. Think of him as Hazzard Haggard omnipresent and Kenny Rogers cuddly. Enjoyment of “Anything Like Me” hinges on your belief that Brad is everything like you; once the golly-gee-shucks sentimentality, “awwwwww, he said ‘me’!” cuteness and that jaunty little guitar line have fizzed off, there’s barely enough song left to fill a sippy cup half full. Beats a half-empty sippy cup, I suppose.
[6]