What do you do after winning Male Artist of the Year at the ACM Awards? If you’re Thomas Rhett, you release a brand-new album that reminds everyone exactly why you deserve the accolades you receive. Rhett chose to go back to his roots on ‘Country Again (Side A)’, which was released Friday. The 11-track collection is filled with stories about enjoying the simple life and appreciating what you have while you can.
Rhett’s best moments on this album come when he’s tugging at your heartstrings and singing about things that are very real to him. The two best songs on ‘Country Again’ are hands down ‘Ya Heard’ and ‘To The Guys That Date My Girls’ because we get another glimpse into his life outside of music. With more of a bluegrass arrangement, ‘Ya Heard’ is a testament to Rhett’s faith. He admits that he sometimes had doubts about believing. Looking at his life with his family and his thriving career though, it’s very clear that he got everything he prayed for. By ending this album with ‘Ya Heard’, Rhett chose to save the best for last. ‘To The Guys That Date My Girls’ is impressive for its ability to buck the tradition of trying to intimidate or scare away any potential suitors for his daughters. Instead, what we got is a very sweet and realistic song that attempts to give advice to their potential boyfriends.
While there are no particularly bad songs in this collection, ‘Where We Grew Up’ and ‘Put It On Ice’ do end up at the back of the pack quality-wise. The biggest problem that ‘Where We Grew Up’ suffers from is that he is trying to tell a story about country life with decidedly pop instrumentation. I can definitely hear this song going to radio as a single, but traditionalists will criticize it for not being country enough. ‘Put It On Ice’ is a duet with HARDY, that is a rare misstep for Rhett as far as the speed of his singing is concerned. Rhett has a strong knack for making faster lyrics still able to be sung by a crowd, but this song just does it unnecessarily. If I were Rhett, I would leave this one off the setlist of future shows.
Overall, I think Thomas Rhett is well aware of what types of songs work well for him and he continues to lean into those with this album. He is becoming one of the more reliable entertainers in country music to put out quality content every time. To listen to ‘Country Again (Side A)’ click here.
