Album Review: Lady Antebellum - Need You Now
- Written by Richard Wink
Country Music… just saying those two words causes a shudder. However recently there has been a hint of mainstream credibility creeping back into the much maligned genre. No longer are we seeing a bunch of backwoods Barbies, and generic looking chiseled jawed cowboy-types trotting out mid-tempo strum alongs about heartbreak and devouring t-bone steaks. Lady Antebellum are part of the new breed of contemporary artists that incorporate R&B and rock elements into the rigid Country songwriting template.
The trio, sugar and salt vocal duo Hillary Scott and Charles Kelley, and instrumentalist Dave Haywood have produced an album that is both appealing (two million plus sales suggest a few people like what they do) and unapologetically American. Looking at the record from the perspective of somebody situated on the better side of the pond, you struggle to work out why they’ve garnered such a following. Having said that, Taylor Swift is currently popular here with the tween crowd, Dolly Parton is a freaking idol, folks like to line dance, and sometime in the murky distant past Billy Ray Cyrus had a number one single.
The trio’s road into the music business was partly assisted by Hillary Scott’s mother Linda Davis, a relatively well known country singer who had some connections, though the road to the top wasn’t the smoothest ride since Scott herself had to battle through rejection as she failed to earn a spot on American Idol, and never really made ground in Nashville as a solo recording artist.
Lady Antebellum have scored big from two singles from this album - ‘Need You Now’ and ‘American Honey’, the former opens with a tidy little piano refrain before Scott and Kelley duet. It’s one of those cliché ridden love songs about needing somebody that plenty of people have sung about in Popular Music History before. Some wide-ranging examples include N-Dubz, America, LeAnn Rimes, Leo Sayer, The Beatles, somebody called Agnes and the unfortunately named Smokie Norful.
See, that’s what they are aiming for: familiarity. ‘American Honey’ is the sloppy joe that Americans will eat up, slick audio candy “Nothing’s sweeter than summertime and American Honey”. It fits in with the brighter half of Lady Antebellum, carefree good time jukebox anthems such as ‘Perfect Day’ which recounts as Justin Lee Collins would say “Good Times!” - hanging out with buddies and swimming in a lake in the case of this track. These sprightly songs contain some juicy hooks, the ‘let’s throw on some tight fitting jeans and spray on some Brut aftershave before we head out for a night on the tiles’ of ‘If I Knew Then’ is absolutely jam packed with them.
The weaker side of Lady Antebellum is evident in their sterile ballads, and disappointingly this album is littered with slow burners that lose the initial impact of regret. ‘Our Kind of Love’, ‘When You Got a Good Thing’ and ‘Stars Tonight’ are desperately safe. Whoever is mentoring the band is obviously telling them to be good Republican folk, and ignore their carnal desires. Yes, there are subtle references about Charles Kelley plying a girl with drink until she puts out, and yes, Hillary Scott digs dudes who look like Bruce Springsteen, but mostly they tow the line which has made Country Music so unattractive for anyone outside of the Southern States.