As loyal readers know, Country Central hasn’t always been kind to Jelly Roll, affectionately known in these parts as “Mr. Roll.” Since his explosion onto the Nashville scene back in 2022, Jelly Roll has built an empathetic and marketable brand on the back of fiery, mega-church-ready orations and innocuous, gospel-tinged pop-country singles. He’s made a career out of offering the illusion of substance to audiences not used to much substance in their regular rotation.
As cheesy and surface-level as his schtick can be, it’s undeniable that Jelly Roll has the bona fides as a vocalist to one day assemble a truly excellent country music record. His versatile skill set and deep network of potential collaborators put him in a prime position to impress the most skeptical of his critics, if he’s willing to take a hard left into untapped creative territory.
I write this article partly as a prescription for what I believe could be a genuinely great record, but also to remind the average reader that, in the end, any praise or critiques about the music far more than the artist making it. Jelly Roll is a remarkable talent, but so far, he has produced little that is truly worthy of his ability.
- The right producer
Off the jump, this may be the most essential element of this imaginary record. To separate from Jelly Roll’s extensive back-catalogue of country-inflected trailer-trap and contemporary Christian concoctions, there should be no doubt that a straight-down-the-middle, traditionally-oriented country album should be in store. You can go full-on 1990s honky-tonking, or a little more singer-songwriter, but it just has to feel starkly unlike his Zach Crowell and Charlie Handsome-engineered singles of yesteryear.
Who should be at the helm of that ship? Dave Cobb would be an obvious and exciting selection, especially given his work with a certain other tall, powerhouse vocalist. However, even though we’re leaning more toward the traditional here, we have to remember that Jelly Roll is still a chameleonic artist with a commercial itch that needs scratching.
As such, Post Malone’s right-hand man in the studio, Louis Bell, would be my first-round draft pick to produce the all-new, all-different Jelly Roll. Just via Posty’s discography, Bell brings some of the most eclectic production credits in all of music, and some of the most interesting hooks of the last decade. With adaptability and a recent history covering an outlandishly wide palette of country music sounds, the fit just feels natural.
2. Story songs
From a lyrical perspective, some clever, third-person narratives would immediately resolve one of the most tiresome traits that have plagued Jelly Roll’s country catalogue: an endless hyper-fixation on self. Granted, every artist has to think about themselves a little more than the average person to truly be in touch with their feelings to the extent that they turn them into good songs, but Jelly Roll takes that quality far too far. Nearly every song he’s released is oriented around his deliverance from self-destructive behavior in some way.
This is the major difference between Jason DeFord being a great storyteller and a great artist. So far, his output has signaled towards the former, with that story being pitilessly elongated over an inescapable, four-year run.
On the flip side, everything about his sincere, down-home aura lends itself to a quality balladeer, of which mainstream country music has been lacking. Consider those imaginative yarns that used to pop up on 2000s country radio, a la “Austin” or “People Are Crazy,” whether penned by his hand or not, just a few of those would radically improve Mr. Roll’s overall outlook, and raise the ceiling of any project he puts out, no matter what it sounds like.
3. Tempo!
Even if you’re a fan of Jelly Roll’s current direction, it should be difficult to deny the need for more songs over 80 beats per minute. For an artist so focused on lowest-common-denominator appeal, he’s made very little effort to truly entertain the casual listener so much as sermonize to them. It may sound reductive and superficial, but this perfect Jelly Roll album needs a few peppy grooves on it, bolstered by some barn-burning twang.
It could channel the spirited nonchalance of those songs he’s made for kids’ movies, while hopefully, you know… nothing like those songs in any other respect.
4. The right guests
Consider the expansive list of artists that Jelly Roll has collaborated with, just in the 18 months: mgk, Alex Warren, OneRepublic, Marshmello, and Brandon Lake.
Yeah, this project should sound as little like those acts as humanly possible.
If the thesis of this project is for Jelly Roll to open up his playbook with more authentically country sounds, he won’t do so with Wiz Khalifa on the track. With such a deep rolodex of notable acts who would readily team with the affable artist if called upon, a cool cast of collaborators could be a massive setting, the tone. It could be alt-country heroes like tourmates Sierra Ferrell and Carter Faith, or even a second team-up with Lainey Wilson.
Regardless, the guests Jelly Roll enlists (and we know there’ll be at least a few) should be indicative of the steadfast commitment to country music we’re prescribing, with a low premium on crossover potential. No more flirtations with blah genre-agnostism, just memorable ‘moment’ songs with honest-to-goodness country artists.
5. Fewer metaphors, more “real life stuff”
As previously discussed, wrapping his salvation story in shallow metaphors is the drug that Jelly Roll just can’t quit. From the recent single “Thorns” to pretty much the entirety of Beautifully Broken, there’s scarcely a track to his name of late that really lets you into his world, despite how much it seems to mean to him to appear vulnerable.
The final expectation for this idealistic record is simple: more character growth that doesn’t hinge on flimsy platitudes about overcoming some unspecified darkness, or describing his journey with an undefined metaphor, such as drowning or walking through fire.
If his own mental health will continue to be a cornerstone of his artistry, the time has come for him to dig a bit deeper and build relatable narratives from his own first-hand accounts. Jelly Roll has lived a harrowing life and, by his account, has experienced far more hardship than the average person. For him to live an ostensibly well-adjusted life in the spotlight takes a considerable degree of emotional fortitude, which is ripe source material for some introspective ballads. If the likes of Justin Bieber and Morgan Wallen can do it, there should be little doubt that Jelly Roll can find a bit more inspiration in the emotional well.
