Luke Bryan’s latest project is exactly what’s wrong with country music and why the genre is plastered with out-of-touch stereotypes. Listeners should be furious with the lack of quality and effort in Bryan’s ninth studio album, Signs. Understandably, some of the intent behind his mildly catchy melodies would’ve worked ten years ago and would likely still work well for listeners becoming accustomed to the genre. However, aside from feeding the naive, praise from this subset should be as far as it goes.
As if “Fish Hunt Golf Drink” wasn’t enough, Bryan serves listeners a spiritual sequel in “Down Goes the Whiskey,” where we get a lesson on how a love story blooms and tragically dies: “slam goes the door, flying goes the dust…” Must I go on? Perhaps the only thing more entertaining than the strange stage presence of a man in skinny jeans is the Mad Lib feature of this album.
After listening to the entirety of Signs, if you can get through it (and if you can, I’m equally worried about why you were able to), you’ll likely realize your five-year-old niece, cousin, or son could be a writer for Luke Bryan. “I Liked Loving You” displays this perspective perfectly:
“I liked drinkin’ whiskey back when drinkin’ whiskey didn’t come with somethin’ to drown.”
Following this pattern for the rest of the song, you can see that, much like the project, the track is unnecessary and uninteresting. Plus, there’s something about a 50-year-old intentionally using poor grammar, like “it don’t matter,” that’s really the icing on this dumpster of a cake.
That said, if you ignore all lyricism, pieces like “Country and She Knows It” might still win you over with a bit of enjoyment, as the residual sounds of peak 2016 Luke Bryan fill your ears. However, don’t fall for the nostalgia trap, as you’ll be left with more head-scratchers and headaches than it’s worth.
All to say, spinning this record is the purest form of enablement. As an artist with tenure in the genre, it’s frankly pathetic and unfortunate that this poor quality is what fresh-eyed artists will look up to. It sets a poor precedent for the success of AI music and weak songwriting, which are already diluting the genre. Rather than continue on this abysmal operating path, simply not releasing new music would’ve been a better option.
