Jake Owen – Barefoot Blue Jean Night
Country singer: “Cold beer is quite good.”
[Video][Website]
[6.00]
Chuck Eddy: Well, this clearly fills the same three-minute no-shoes country-radio summer pop-rock slot that Jack Ingram’s even better “Barefoot And Crazy” did two years ago, from the Tom Pettyness on down (opening power-jangle right out of “Free Fallin'” in this case). Not as over-sexed (or ornately heavy) as Owen’s incidentally obscene #11 country hit “Eight Second Ride” from a couple years back, but hardly prudish, either. In fact, kind of sexy.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: “The girls are always hot and the beer is ice cold,” he sings, and it might as well be “Paradise City” as rewritten by Bon Jovi and then rearranged by Mutt Lange. But more butch than that sounds, and stuffed with not quite indelible but irresistible hooks.
[8]
Erick Bieritz: Outsiders to country often struggle with the earnestness in the music, but what’s more earnest than power pop? Any listener to the latter can find a context for the former when it includes stadium rock imagery and some well-placed “woah-oh-ohs.” Like last year’s “Felt Good On My Lips” this is proof that hooks transcend genres.
[8]
Iain Mew: Those massive and triumphant “woah-oh-oh”s could be enjoyably infectious in the right hands. Here I’m already lost well before then, because this is specifically self-celebratory while offering little reason to justify it. The pause after “the beer is ice cold” that feels like it should be filled with canned laughter certainly doesn’t help.
[3]
Anthony Easton: People hold up cell phones instead of lighters now, which makes more sense, because I don’t know how to hold up a lighter without the light going out or burning your thumb. First meta-single of the summer; there will be more, but this is not unpleasant.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: It’s all about those masculine-chorus “whoah-oh-oh”s, straight out of Bon Jovi or Jon Mellencamp. The rest of the song hews as close to modern country-party conventions as, well, Jason Derülo does to modern city-party conventions, but that doesn’t mean the genre is incapable of its moments of transcendence.
[7]
Michaela Drapes: Ugh, just when I thought Jake Owen’s voice couldn’t be more annoying or the wafer-thin production more flimsy, that ridiculous choir comes in. You can’t force a song into being a generational anthem, dude. Don’t try.
[3]