The Singles Jukebox

There’s a big umbrella casting shade over an empty chair…

[Video][Website]
[4.09]

Crystal Leww: There’s a side of bro country built on the female fantasy of the sensitive beautiful bro made by boys like Thomas Rhett and Sam Hunt. There’s also bro country built on the male fantasy of how great it is to drink in random places, fuck beautiful girls, and be vindictive and mean to your ex. Dierks Bentley is that kind of bro country.
[2]

Jonathan Bradley: Bro country might have peaked, but Dierks Bentley won’t let it go easily: he’s spent too long getting the moves down. His laconic delivery on the verses is what Jake Owen made sound natural on “Real Life,” and the booze-and-broads fantasy of the chorus is the kind that doesn’t work unless the dudes braying along are as idiotically good-natured as the ones from Florida Georgia Line. (It wouldn’t occur to them to rhyme “body” and “naughty,” and so much the better.) “Drunk on a Plane” was great because it was funny; Dierks insisted heartbreak and economy class made for the hottest party combo since lime met coconut. “Somewhere on a Beach,” however, is more straightforward and so more mean-spirited — his ex shouldn’t think for a second he cared enough to be hung up on her — and, what’s more, I don’t think even he believes what he’s saying.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: Musically it lopes along amiably, like much of Bentley’s catalog, and its chorus is a sticky hook. But lyrically this is way beneath Bentley’s usual standards: it’s framed as his usual “you left me but I’m better off” shtick, but there’s a nasty undertone here. “She [your replacement]’s got a body/and she’s naughty” implies that his ex didn’t, and it just comes off as kinda mean. I expect better from Bentley, and this ain’t it.
[3]

Patrick St. Michel: Boy, this is just one of the most depressing kiss-off songs I’ve ever heard. Sure, the hook lays out how great everything seems to be going for our narrator — new woman and plenty of drinks in warmer climes. But it unfold at tequila-hangover speed, very little joy coming through in any of his boasts. I mean, he sounds exhausted singing about how little sleep he’s gotten. It’s all too sluggish to be a good time, but turned interesting by the vibe that dude is scribbling all of this on a napkin at the Ramada pool bar. 
[5]

Megan Harrington: I guess I’m just relieved the plane finally landed. 
[3]

Gaya Sundaram: This song is so laidback that Bentley doesn’t even know where exactly he is (“somewhere on a beach”) or even what he’s drinking (“something strong”); the melody is nothing new and the guitar solo barely tries. But there is comfort in familiarity, and that is one reason why this song works. The other is Bentley’s voice.
[6]

Brad Shoup: Some people just can’t be happy. Bentley’s got a nice half-speed groove, and all he can do with it is grouse. His mood infects the track: the drums start to sound cranky, the guitar solo snaps. What a shitty postcard.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: I already used the “From Cayman Islands With Love” reference on you, Dierks. If you’re going to do the same shit, so am I.
[3]

Jonathan Bogart: Maybe if I hadn’t watched the video I’d be able to take this song as the gooberish but inoffensive child of Jimmy Buffett and post-Gillsburg Skynyrd it is. But the video’s gross and gleeful embrace of colonialist attitudes, patriarchal body-image messaging, and straight-up derision towards the mentally ill makes me sadder and angrier the more I think about it. Telling dumb white fatsos like me that we deserve the love of ethnically ambiguous supermodels for no reason is in great part responsible for the state of the world today, and it’s not getting any better.
[1]

Anthony Easton: The first minute or so of this, with the vaguely surfish guitar, is pleasurable and unguarded — it’s the perfect introduction to how unambitious this whole track is. It’s also much more interesting than most of the other work. I love Dierks’s voice, and the roil of that intro guitar does the work of the lassitude of that voice. I also think he’s trying ever so slightly to do that Sam Hunt speak singing in this, which just doesn’t quite work. All of that said, there are moments here that are genuinely interesting and worth something. (More how he sings “boys,” less how he rhymes “body” with “naughty.”)  
[7]

Alfred Soto: With the exception of last year’s lovely “Say You Will,” Dierks Bentley singles sneak up on me. The beat has molasses in the hips and sex on its mind, the guitar lines as crinkly as the lines around Bentley’s mouth. I’m hedging my bets because the chorus is so damn unimaginative, written and sung as if no one involved had even seen a picture of Cancun.
[7]