The Singles Jukebox

If you must, but don’t shack up with this guy, k?

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[4.29]

Megan Harrington: If you listened all the way to the end of this phone call, you definitely aren’t in love with him and you probably should break up with him. Should you hook back up with your ex? Eh. Maybe it’s time to live love learn and go to you or something like that. 
[7]

Alfred Soto: Well, producer Shane McAnally is human too, as the mandolin-pickin’ mediocrity of this number demonstrates. Hip-hop beat and talk-sung verses, Brand X vocals, unpersuasive advice — isn’t this what Miranda Lambert and Ashley Monroe are covering their ears against?
[3]

Jessica Doyle: So hypersensitive am I to condescension towards women in country that I was ready to give this an [8] after one listen — mainly because “I know that you’re so done with him” is delivered straight; the likes of Alan Jackson would have sneered it, as an example of how flighty females talk. In that light the echoes of Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World” in the opener look juuust maybe deliberate: an expansive, smiling mindset. But so hypersensitive am I to condescension towards women in country that on every repeat the experience sours juuust a bit more: maybe she’s not silently agreeing with you, bro. Maybe she’s trying to be gentle. Maybe she can’t get a word in edgewise. Maybe she’s got you on speakerphone so that the guy who isn’t insisting he knows what she feels better than she does can listen in. 
[5]

Micha Cavaseno: Dudes with chins that are way too big for their big heads but with no ideas of their own mishandle the Sam Hunt gimmicks by painting themselves less as the companion and more as the White Knight. Also features the same changes and rhythmic backbeat as dozens of other singles you’ve heard before. And some sustained guitar notes to add a sense of “depth.”
[2]

Anthony Easton: Such a charming asshole, and such an amazing track; it takes the song speech and the swagger of Sam Hunt, and the guitar moves between Moore and Church. Extra points for the chorus, and for how he sings the gaps. 
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: I’ve heard of sad drunks and mad drunks and horny drunks, but never the kind of drunk where you sound like you’re reading cue cards. I’m just saying, you can do better.
[3]

Rebecca A. Gowns: Gross, reprehensible, vile; content-wise, the worst song I’ve heard in ages. I kinda like the guitar riff in-between the verses, but it’s also a very simple chromatic scale, so whatever, fuck this song.
[0]

Patrick St. Michel: The whole thing would be sort of uncomfortable if it weren’t so plodding. This might as while be a PowerPoint presentation without any actual concrete evidence.
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: Successful talk-singing over a groove left over from the Zac Brown Band’s first album that loves you easier than “Loving You Easy.” These guys are gonna be big.
[6]

Ramzi Awn: First of all, that’s really bad advice. I feel really bad for the guy he’s talking about. Secondly, this dude sounds like a douche. Sorry, but that’s the most appropriate response I’ve got. 
[3]

Brad Shoup: Mmmmohmygod they actually start this thing with “hey girl.” In the annals of concern drawling, this is a storied entry. It’s like a napkin sketch of Sam Hunt, distended by bar-temp Coors Light: there’s the talk-singing, the too-smarmy come-on, and that “Be Real Black For Me” piano attack. I wouldn’t be surprised if the germ of this was “like ‘Call Your Girlfriend,’ but smugger.” Matthew Ramsey has a lot of fun with the chorus’s cadence, but otherwise he’s just waiting for the other end of the phone to go silent.
[5]

Mo Kim: The instrumental is grimy, grounded in guitar tones excavated from the mud and a Sunday school piano worn down to only its most fundamental chords, but it’s the voice that fills out the texture with feeling. Lead singer Matthew Ramsey pulls off a performance as petty as it is insistent: he captures the escalating frustration and glee that comes with hoping for a relationship that isn’t yet but could be something much more.
[7]

Crystal Leww: Douchebag, sure, but somehow, I ended up knowing all the words to this song.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: Did we need a country “Marvin’s Room”? Did we need to find the midpoint between Uncle Kracker and Faith No More’s “Easy”?
[3]