I give Tom a pass on this, because his wheelhouse isn't so much any one genre as it is "anything popular," and Zach Bryan is definitely that.
I get the 'this album is long' complaints and I agree it's long but...I would have a hard time cutting any of these songs. I think this is easily his best album front to back. May not reach the highs of some of his other albums, but doesn't come close to the lows.
I like it more than the last one, though I can’t quite say why. I don’t think he’ll ever make me feel like I felt about AH and ST again, but that’s okay.
i just kinda ignore the "this is too long" comments. media attention span is at an all time low these days. look at 90% of the movie threads on this website and youll find someone complaining about the runtime before they even go see it. this album flies by for me. 80 minutes is not a chore lol
I kind of think the it’s too long argument doesn’t work anymore after so many long records. This is just what he makes. It’s great for long drives in the country I guess.
It's much easier to deal with a bloated album vs. a bloated movie, and it's even easier to deal with if the music is actually good. I find myself checking out of this one around Plastic Cigarettes, maybe because of the length, maybe because the last couple of tracks don't do it for me.
I mean, yes, all the songs are listenable. It’s also just not a dynamic album, and doesn’t earn that 25 tracks, IMO. Even if I like most of the songs on their own, it definitely starts to run together the deeper into it you get. And like, he’s not the first prolific songwriter in history. Lots of people before him have proven themselves capable of whittling huge amounts of work into cohesive albums. The fact that he’s never done that is becoming more of a mark against him, for me. Especially when there’s little progression between albums.
I will say: American Heartbreak is nine songs and 40 minutes longer than this album, but earns the bloat way more because it's a significantly more varied album. He was visiting a lot of different types of country music on that album, and wasn't as reluctant to steer into mainstream/radio territory as he is now, so you got songs like "The Outskirts" or "Younger Years" or "If She Wants a Cowboy" that switched up the momentum nicely.
I also think he taps in to some mainstream country stuff here. One track already played during the Eagles game. I could see Appetite, Santa Fe, Dry Deserts and Say Why all getting play in the same way American Nights did. You Can Still Come Home sounds like it could be in a car or soup commercial.
I love If She Wants a Cowboy. He just casually showed that he could do Nashville as well as Nashville can while also making fun of it a little.
@OhTheWater You did me dirty btw. because at some point you called ZB stomp clap and I was shocked and appalled but now when listening to this album I often cannot shake the thought that you might be right and it hurts lol
Haha I don't know if that was me! I don't usually like stomp clap used in the pejorative bc I think it's lazy and I like the bands that fall into the style. Could've been though, plus ZB has definitely been grouped in with like Noah Kahan by a lot of people.
Oh it was you haha, I think it was in the context if you defending it in a way, or rather defending some of the artists like you do here, so that makes sense