Twenty Greatest Singles of the CU Era: Kane Brown, “Whiskey Sour” | CPT PPP Coverage
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Twenty Greatest Singles of the CU Era: Kane Brown, “Whiskey Sour” appeared on www.countryuniverse.net by Jonathan Keefe.
“Whiskey Sour”
Written by Adam Craig, Jaxson Free, and Josh Hoge
2022
How fitting that the 20 years of Country Universe are bookended by singles on which a contemporary star demonstrates the value of traditional country. As Kevin noted about Lee Ann Womack’s “I May Hate Myself in the Morning,” Kane Brown’s “Whiskey Sour” “is not one of the best records of the last twenty years because it’s a traditional country record, but because it was recorded by an artist who understood how to use the elements of traditional country music to make a great record.”
For as much as modern country acts pay lip service to the genre’s halcyon days of the 90s, they rarely demonstrate more than a shallow understanding of why the music of that era was transformative for the genre. They hit the notes– some of them do, at least– but they don’t hear the music.
“Whiskey Sour,” in contrast, is fully in conversation with the best ballads of Randy Travis, Clint Black, or Alan Jackson.
The song itself is a marvel of narrative construction. There’s a hard pivot between the line, “If I’d ask, you’d tell me yes,” and, “Well, it only took a month or so to be someone you used to know,” and the trio of songwriters trust the listener to bring their own history to fill in the gaps of how this relationship crumbled so quickly. Like Mickey Guyton’s “Nice Things,” this is a song that doesn’t condescend to its audience’s skill set.
Brown, in addition to having the wherewithal to record a song like this in the first place, gives a performance worthy of the likes of Travis or Black. Consider, for example, the subtle break in his voice on the word “here” in the most important line (“Well, I’ve never been a somber soul / But part of me ain’t here no more / And I’ve been tryin’ to find it ever since,” which is absolutely as good as anything Jason Isbell or Brandy Clark have written) and how it reflects his narrator’s interior life.
Brown is so often underestimated– just check his paltry record of CMA nominations for one example– and the reasons are obvious. “Whiskey Sour” isn’t just the strongest rebuttal to the naysayers; it’s truly an all-time great country single.
Additional Listening:
Other essential offerings by Brown
- “One Mississippi,” the best example of how Brown’s version of contemporary country is rooted in a respect for women’s agency.
- Lest anyone think he doesn’t understand exactly what he’s doing, the deliberate word choices on “Riot” are powerful and subversive.
- Another spoiler alert: “Backseat Driver” will surely figure in our 2024 best-of.
Country Universe: A 20th Anniversary Retrospective
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This article originally appeared on www.countryuniverse.net by Jonathan Keefe – sharing via newswires in the public domain, repeatedly. News articles have become eerily similar to manufacturer descriptions.
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