Album Review: "Crash My Party" by Luke Bryan

Well I will start by saying this wasn't as bad as I was expecting. It wasn't good by any means but if you survive the first two songs then you're set because that's as bad as it gets. After hearing his new single "That's My Kinda Night" I was expecting this to be painful to listen to, it really wasn't. I guess what I'm getting at here is the fact that this album sounds exactly like every other mainstream pop country album out there. I hated listening to it because every single song sounds the same. The instrumentation is barely country and the lyrics are just childish. That's the problem, it's just blah, pointless, meaningless music that's just wasting space. It's a shame that this album already sold half a million copies, there's no soul, no depth, it's not even fun to listen to. I hope people will start to get sick of stuff like this soon.

"That's My Kinda Night" is one of those cliche party in the pasture songs, but it is one of the most over the top ridiculous things I have ever heard. It starts off with him saying little fake rapper sounds like "Uh uh" over a hip hop beat. With lines like "Catch us up a little Catfish dinner, gonna sound like a winner winner" and "Put in my country, rock, hip-hop mixtape. Little Conway, a little T-Pain, might just make it rain" it really makes you wonder what these songwriters are on when they are writing this trash. How could anyone be okay with destroying a genre purely because they're a greedy asshole? I would be embarrassed and ashamed to have my name on something like this, I just don't get how people are okay with it. This very well could be the worst "country" song that has ever existed. 

When you look past that vile piece of garbage the rest is like I said, blah. Ultimately out of 17 tracks there are two different topics the song could be about. The first theme is the good time "country kinda crazy" (Yes a quote from one of the songs, *rolls eyes*) loving out in a field in the mud with a girl and a truck and some beers, yeah I'm sure you heard the story. "That's My Kinda Night" "Play It Again" "Out Like That" "Shut It Down" and others are all about getting frisky with some chick in a field. The other cliche theme is I was so happy with this girl during the summer. We were drunk and crazy and in love, then she left now I'm sad. "Roller Coaster" "Goodbye Girl" "Sunburnt Lips" "Better Than My Heart" "I See You" "Your Mama Should Have Named You Whiskey" are all about driving or sitting on a tractor being like aw shit I miss this girl. That is honestly what all the songs are about except two.

"Drink A Beer" is unquestionably the best song on the album. Don't let the name fool you because it isn't a dumb getting drunk in a truck song, it's actually a song about someone who died too young. It's a little cliche the whole good ole boy didn't deserve to go so soon but God's got a plan for us both deal. I've heard it a bunch of times but that's okay. It's acoustic with get this, a steel guitar! (Holy shit I know) It really isn't that bad, I wouldn't mind listening to it. It just shows he is capable of putting out decent music. On the flip side of that the other different song is called "Blood Brothers." Of course it's a song about a group of guy friends who would do anything for each other. They do typical "bad boy" stuff like smoke, drink, and drive big trucks. It's a song that's not even worth mentioning until the line "It was one for all and all for one, a bunch of outlaws without a gun." The fake outlaw shit has to stop, it has to die a long painful death because I'm sick of it. I know all the mainstream singers think they are changing what outlaw means. They try to tell you they aren't talking about the "Waylon kind of outlaw" they mean the "bad boy outlaw." I'm sorry but there's no way around it, in country music "outlaw" means one thing, and one thing only. It doesn't mean rowdy asshole, it means someone who works their ass off to make the music they believe in, well knowing that they may never get anywhere with it because it doesn't follow "the rules" or the latest "musical trends." What it comes down to is it's just downright disrespectful to the actual outlaws who paved the way for country music today. All these singers like Justin Moore, Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, and such try to "rebrand" what outlaw means but even if they are talking about the "bad boy outlaw" these pretty boys in skinny jeans sure ain't no outlaws, and all their dumb fans are like "we like beer and trucks and boobs yay were outlaws!" No, you're not. You're not outlaws, just douchebags. 

Now we have to look a little deeper at the songwriting on this album. I mean a drunk 5 year old could have written more mature sounding songs, seriously! Some of these lines are just atrocious. "I wanna feel your heart go tick tock, while the rain from your hair goes drip drop." "If you want to know the real me, just turn the page in my dirt road diary." Or my personal favorite from a song titled "Beer In The Headlights" I thought the line was "You got the beautiful, I got the coolifull." I couldn't believe anyone could have written something so dumb so I listened to it again and the line is "cooler full" not "cooliful" which is a little better but still ridiculous. Besides the fact that all the songs are about the same thing, they all sound the same too. The melodies and instrumentation are all very similar. Some have hip hop/R&B beats, some actually do have prominent steel guitar and banjo parts so that shows some country effort. Overall they all sound like bad non creative pop songs about beer and girls. I'll admit some of his songs aren't as bad as others but they aren't anything special. If he wasn't a hot guy with a nice ass no one would care about him. That goes for a lot of the pretty boys in country music. That's all it is, a big modeling show. You can make completely unoriginal music that people will forget in a couple months, but as long as you're hot, you're in! Meanwhile the people making timeless music from their heart don't receive any attention because they aren't pretty enough and they don't sing about trucks. That's the way the world works folks!

Cliche Countryisms Count:

Truck: 8

Beer: 19

Tractor: 3

Tanline: 4

Tailgate: 3

Dirt Road: 7

Semi-decent Songs:  "Drink A Beer" "Crash My Party"

Rating: F+