Well, it finally happened. Luke Bryan finally hung up his hat and boots and said that he would be releasing his final ‘Spring Break’ album this year, because the age of 38 is a totally acceptable time to stop partying with college girls (not). As the seventh spring break-orientated EP from the superstar, it’s been a nice filler release in-between albums for him, but it was definitely getting old, particularly since much of the songs on ‘Tailgates and Tanlines’ but more prominently ‘Crash My Party’ are good-timin’ songs anyway. And since he’s risen to even more wide-ranging fame in the past couple of years, it’s unlikely that Luke is going to stop putting those kind of tracks in abundance on his usual albums anytime soon.
‘Spring Break… Checkin’ Out’ is officially an album, but actually only consists of five new tracks, with six others coming from the last release ‘Like We Ain’t Ever’. It sort of seems like an odd choice to combine the two, but bearing in mind that in 2013 he released a Spring Break compilation, it makes sense to release another package for the songs released since then, at least from a marketing standpoint. The new music consists of ‘My Ol’ Bronco’, ‘Games’, ‘Spring Breakdown’ (also the lead single from the project, complete with appropriate music video footage of his shows), ‘Checkin’ Out’ and ‘You and The Beach’, and for the most part slip in fairly unnoticed with the twelve-month-old accompanying tracks.
Yet there’s something of a melancholy to the usual cheery atmosphere of Luke’s Spring Break offerings, and that shows in the comparisons between old and new music on this record. From the sweet nostalgia of opener ‘My Ol’ Bronco’, we get the sense Luke is very much looking back on the past for this record, as there’s a hint of sadness that longs for the best of times despite the celebration of the car’s continued life as a vehicle. And while rhythmic, catchy title track ‘Checkin’ Out’ has a pretty bright and enthusiastic outlook on what that hallowed Spring Break week offers, there’s also the added implication of how it relates to the end of that aspect of Luke’s career, alongside the other multiple meanings for the phrase utilized throughout. So when he sings that oft-repeated refrain “that’s what this week’s all about… checkin’ in… checkin’ out”, we think at once of the checking out of girls and bars, beaches and music, as we do of Luke finally waving goodbye to the tradition, and perhaps even his extended youth.
The concept of saying goodbye is made no more clear than on lead single ‘Spring Breakdown’, which quite simply serves as a message to those fans who have joined him year after year on his seasonal escapades. Although the lyrics leave a bit to be desired in terms of flow and poetic creativity (at times it feels more like a blog post than a song), it is certainly a strong country pop offering sonically and has a couple of clever twists with prior track references and inter-rhymes, making it an ideal choice for a single that places a bittersweet layer on the typical Spring Break song. “I’m ‘bout to Spring Breakdown,” Luke sings. “Just thinkin’ ‘bout all our good times together.” More than anything we feel as if this will be harder on him than the fans; after all, at the age of thirty-eight he is now approaching forty and is reaching the end of the time where he can comfortably channel youth in his life and career, even for this era’s crop of man-children. We hear him, therefore, soberly confronting the fact that he is not going to be livin’ it up forever, and it may not be too long until he is past his commercial peak, regardless of how popular he is right now. That in itself makes this Spring Break EP one of the most interesting narrative-wise, and hints at what may be to come when his fifth studio album hits stores in the summer/fall.
The other two tracks on this EP, ‘Games’ and ‘You And The Beach’ also project a darker and more negative vibe than we’re used to hearing on these collections. The former, which has enjoyed some pretty high chart positions on the Billboard country charts, works from a late 90s pop/electro/hip hop sound before falling into an alternative rock mould for the chorus, the sonic dissonance providing a surprisingly adept backing for a song that is about two people playing mind games and running circles around their own romantic prospects. “All these games we play, I can’t even keep ‘em all straight,” he sings desperately, and coupled with the multitude of non-country styles on the track (all of which have entered pop-country of late), it could also be interpreted as a reflection of bro-country, mainstream radio and the bizarre situation the genre finds itself in. Of course, I am probably clutching at straws for a deeper meaning, but it doesn’t mean it’s not a viable reading of a song that’s oddly deeper than even what we’re used to hearing from him on his standard albums.
The same goes for ‘You And The Beach’, a slow burn of a track laid over an urban groove and slightly unsettling rock instrumentation, about a Spring Break romance that continues to haunt him after he goes home and the fling is no more. It reminds me quite a bit of his most recent single ‘I See You’ both sonically and lyrically, and it could be he was trying for a themed version of the #1 hit. Either way, it wraps up a handful of new songs that do not necessarily follow the set mould for a Luke Bryan Spring Break album, and that in itself fascinates me. Was he trying to do something different for his last one? Was he just greatly affected by having to move on (it might be no coincidence that he’s suffered family heartache recently)? Will he end up putting a dampener on those final festivities? Perhaps. But it also hints at a deeper side to the bro-country superstar that we have seen before, but not in such great numbers lately. Indeed, the biggest takeaway of ‘Spring Break… Checkin’ Out’ may be where the next phase of Luke Bryan’s career will lead us.
