If you’ve been consciously avoiding any of the new males on country radio, then you might just be missing out. Among the great pop-country of Frankie Ballard, Brett Eldredge and Eric Paslay, we have Jon Pardi, a man who received his biggest hit with his most commercial song ‘Up All Night’ in 2013 (it reached top 10), but nonetheless has begun to pave a road of country music that crosses the traditional with the modern. In other words, he’s a hell of a lot more authentic than the vast majority of his contemporaries, be they more commercially successful or not. Subsequent singles ‘What I Can’t Put Down’ and ‘When I’ve Been Drinkin’’ both only made top 40, but they garnered positive reactions from fans and critics and started to show that he wasn’t afraid to stick to his roots.
I can imagine he and his team are opting to move on from his debut album ‘Write You A Song’, which was released in early 2014, considering that four singles have now been released from it and momentum seems to have dropped (largely, I suspect, to do with bro-country and new forms of pop-country rising out of the woodwork). Enter ‘The B-Sides: 2011-2014’ EP, a six-song collection of tracks that never made the album, and the perfect way to cost effectively bridge the gap between records. A new full-length album from Jon isn’t likely to debut until at least the end of this year if not the beginning of next, so it makes sense that they re-package old offshoots that may appeal to fans, and give him a lead track from the project to offer up to radio (for the record, I’m not sure if they’re actually sending it to radio, but it would make sense).
That “lead track” is ‘Back On The Backroads’, a beautifully twangy anthem with the same kind of kicking back in mind as the bros, but with far less clichés and far more country credibility. Think the roots revival that the Dixie Chicks ushered in during the early 00s, with plenty of fiddlin’, a broad southern accent and liberal lashings of pedal steel. The song was treated to a video upon release (last week), which sees Jon donning a cowboy hat (pretty rare these days), line-dancing, slow-motion riding a horse and hanging out with women who are actually dressed normally, instead of squeezed into bikinis and tiny shorts. That alone is enough to communicate where they’re headed with this, and I for one am very happy to see it. Some of the imagery and sounds may be deemed “antiquated” by much of Music Row, but they’re much longed for by huge numbers of fans, and more of them need to know that Jon is pushing further on down this road.
‘Drinkin’ With Me’, another track from the EP, furthers this traditional, twangy sound with a honky-tonkin’ anthem that would whip bar crowds into a frenzy, and although the lyrics are hardly likely to challenge anybody it does see a shift back to the blue collar style of partying rather than the frat boy form. ‘Rainy Night Song’ goes some way to addressing the subject matter balance on the record, with a very enjoyable mid-tempo country ballad about dealing with heartbreak, as mandolin, acoustic guitar, fiddle and pedal steel guide us gently through the three minute track. He raises the tempo and the guitars for ‘Fightin’ The Fool’, a rockin’ stomp lamenting his habit for making mistakes, living it up and hurting people, even though he wishes he could change.
Of course, it should be considered that this is a record of songs that didn’t make the cut. The label may send ‘Back On The Backroads’ to radio but they’re unlikely to throw real money behind promoting it (since this is a “bridge” release), so the question looms about how seriously they’re taking this section of the market. Is this where Jon is going for his second album, and it’s just a teaser? Or is it the more twangy side of him that they wouldn’t allow for an official release? Of course, it should be noted that ‘Write You A Song’ was hardly the most commercial of records, but it also wasn’t the most traditional either. Time will tell as to whether we can expect more real country from Jon, and also how that fares on an increasingly pop-orientated format. Major labels aren’t as patient as they used to be, and country radio is flawed – very flawed.
