The Singles Jukebox

We have some questions for you, Mr. Hunt…

[Video]
[4.17]

Stephen Eisermann: Five years later and this is the best he has? “Downtown’s Dead” was better than this and even that wasn’t too much of an improvement over his first album. I’ve never expected much out of Sam Hunt, but this is particularly lazy considering how adamant he seemed about releasing a different type of material during his hiatus. Here’s hoping to a better album then, eh?
[4]

Alfred Soto: Who says “kinfolk”? Maybe in Sam Hunt’s Cedartown, where these gestures come easily like this adrenalized admixture of nostalgia and lust doesn’t. 
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: I don’t believe a word of this come-on. And his use of “kinfolks” feels like some desperate “I’m country, really” pandering.
[3]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: I should know better than to like Sam Hunt’s average-at-best romancing, but there’s something about “Kinfolks” that’s too endearing and wholesome to resist. It’s in the weird choice of “kinfolks” instead of just “family”; the way he talks about this hometown with more pride than it probably deserves; the smile you just know he’s bearing while singing pickup lines he’s used before; the fact that he namechecks his mom Joanie just because he can. It’s all so basic, but sometimes basic feels nice; I hope this plays this in the background of hometowns for the next season of The Bachelor and it actually ends with an engagement.
[6]

Will Adams: Extra point for the fluttering mandolin that comes in at the end, because it’s all that’s noteworthy about this watery broth of a song.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: The essence of Sam-Hunt-ness, but such is the shadow and stealth influence on dude-country of Montevallo, the more he leans into his essence, the less distinctive he sounds. How’s that for a paradox?
[4]