Keith Urban – Long Hot Summer
Mr. Nicole Kidman!
[Video][Website]
[6.00]
Brad Shoup: Welp, it took nearly the entire long hot summer, but it’s number one at last. It’s a classic Keith Urban single: each fact follows inexorably from the previous, and it’s infused with soft-rock hooks from, oh, 25-35 years ago (this time, credit may have to go to co-writer Richard Marx). The second half is given over to instrumental reverie, just like a lot of pretty great Urban tracks.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: I was wondering why this sounded so toothless and polite, and then I checked Wikipedia. Co-written by Richard Marx. Of course.
[4]
Alfred Soto: As a sucker for guitar chugalug, I want more from Urban than the usual wares, especially when he offers few of Brad Paisley’s hairpin turns. Urban the vocalist is so harmless he could be co-writer Richard Marx angling for a comeback. As earnest pap, not charmless.
[6]
Zach Lyon: Everything is set up in this song’s favor — nice melodies, decent attempt towards compelling writing, the wonderment of country twang being filtered through an Australian accent (the best part of any Urban song) — and it fails to stick the landing. Too subtle and too afraid to emphasize its qualities.
[5]
Iain Mew: For all his claims not to be able to sleep this is awfully breezy and unbothered sounding. You don’t ever get the feeling that there’s any question of the hoped-for long hot summer together not happening, but there’s nothing so contradictory that the song doesn’t work well as a smitten anticipation of good things coming. I’m amused by the meta pun of Summer Glau being in the video, too.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: Swap out the banjos for more guitars, crank up the noise and put someone like Kay Hanley on vocals, and “Long Hot Summer” could easily be power-pop. I’m not sure this version adds anything to the form, but then again, it’s also mid-October and the fan’s in storage again, so perhaps my ears aren’t calibrated right.
[7]