Zach Bryan - The Great American Bar Scene (July 4th, 2024) Album • Page 17

i promise you he will not be addressing anything

 

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/the-front-bottoms-opening-zach-bryans-metlife-stadium-shows/

Hmmm…

 

Man, I really liked his self-titled record but all of his stuff blends together... it's like he writes the same song over and over with different lyrics.

 

I'm a big fan, but there is some truth in this statement. That combined with how much material he puts out every single year (which I like) combines to make it seem a bit repetitive at times. I'd like to see him do an album with more instrumentation and a bigger band - more fiddle and banjo and shit, a big loud BAND album. I think it's the acoustic-y stuff that seems repetitive more than anything else.

 

love JVC and ZB but I think the original Rattlesnake is way better than this. I don’t think their voices work well together, they’re too similar so it doesn’t add much/serves as a distraction when they’re trading off line by line. Some of the instrumental stuff they added is cool though.

 

Great American Bar Scene is fine, but it's a HUGE step down from Boys of Faith EP, Self/Titled and All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster, which really leaned into the big loud band sound.

 

Dude could really use some filter or editing work, maybe a producer who could further focus and sharpen his skills and vision, even if being raw, confessional and all nothing-can-hold-me-back is kinda his thing.

 

I was super big on everything up to All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster, but he fell off pretty hard after that. I felt like American Heartbreak was a good mix after the first two records & the first live album gave those songs new life, but he lost me at Summertime Blues.

I thought “Better Days”, “Pink Skies”, & “Memphis; the blues” were okay enough, but I agree with the “everything started blending together” comments.

Then the stuff with Brianna was really the nail in the coffin for me. I could tell he was kind of a fuck boy, but he really showed his ass in that whole situation. I can’t even listen to the stuff I loved without thinking about what a huge & weird baby he is.

 

He needs a producer with vision. No doubt.

 

He's not exactly a guy I want to root for or defend at the moment, but Bar Scene is his best record, IMO. Sharper songwriting and better integration of the guest artists self-titled, and without the excessive bloat of American Heartbreak. All of his albums suffer from a sameyness factor, but the highlights on that album are so evenly spread out that I feel like it ultimately hangs together better as an album than the others.

 

I need a full album worth of Boys of Faith instrumentalization and production.

I think that's the best string of songs he put together in a single release.

 

American Heartbreak is still easily his best for me. There's more songs I'd cut from both the self-titled and Bar Scene than AH despite it being so long. Plus I think my entire top 5 would still probably be all from that album. It's been diminishing returns for me ever since.

 

Self titled stays winning for me

 

american heartbreak is great but just way too bloated. i almost never come back to DeAnn or Elisabeth, but yeah self titled, bar scene, american heartbreak for me.

 

Self Titled is probably my favorite. American Heartbreak is also fantastic, but yes, too long. Craig had posted a broken down tracklist at some point which is just the album cut into thirds and I use that quite a lot to make it more manageable even though I still listen to the full thing most of the time.

Bar scene is also great, but I don't think it's as strong as the self titled. And I love Summertime Blues as well. I think that's a great nearly album-sized EP

 

Also, apparently a new song this morning

 

admittedly some personal experiences over the summer have significantly tainted my great memories of Bar Scene, i went back to listen to it recently and couldnt get myself through it lol, maybe once time passes it'll re-elevate itself in my rankings.

 

Need that ZB midwest emo album

 

I like Bar Scene but the length and the lack of sonic diversity hurts it by the end. I made a shortened version a little back that was much stronger when you cut the fat

 

He needs to do whatever he did on “Dawns” again. That feels more like an anomaly.

 

He's got a bit of a Goldilocks and the Three Bears catalog for me. American Heartbreak has most of my favorite songs, but also the most stuff I'm meh on. Self-titled is his most solid top-to-bottom album, but only has 1-2 big highlights for me. And then Bar Scene has a ton of songs I love and is a cohesive listen, but definitely could lose 3-4 songs.

 

Feels like the kind of artist that will never have a perfect album front to back unless he slows down and narrows in

 

I do think we'd all probably be a little more forgiving of the bloat of his albums if he weren't releasing them every year.