Thomas Rhett ‘It Goes Like This’ – Album Review

For those who don’t know, Thomas Rhett is the son of Rhett Akins, who had a successful career as a chart-topping country artist, before switching to work with superstar songwriting trio The Peach Pickers (with Dallas Davidson and Ben Hayslip), who have co-written some of the biggest bro-country party anthems of the past year or two. It perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise to me, then, that Thomas follows in that vein, but when people talk about a debut album, obvious outside influences tend to slip my mind and I get used to thinking about things as a clean slate. I try to go into these things open-minded.

The obvious attitudes to life and country music, however, are absolutely unavoidable, and Thomas makes damn sure of this throughout. From first single ‘Something To Do With My Hands’, commercial southern rock hits the speakers, only highlighting the heavy twang of Thomas’ voice. With driving guitars and drums, it is a full-volume affair all the way through, accompanied by lyrics that come with a few innuendos and some cheeky winks, as is implied by the title. It’s actually less in-your-face sexualized than one might suppose, running through examples of ways he’s not very good with his hands, ultimately falling upon sexy times with a girl, but never particularly explicit.

Thomas was also coy about what the album would hold with the current single, title track and reigning radio #1, claiming that a girl made him want to write a song for her. It’s couched in romance “it starts with a smile and it ends in an all-night long slow kiss”, and the sweet melody and commercial rock instrumentation laid over an R&B style picked up every female fan who heard it. No-one really associated him with bro-country because he wasn’t drinking beer, driving a truck or objectifying women, and so he slipped into the “indifference but I’ll give him a try” pile, quite unnoticed. I guess one could argue that that’s how Luke Bryan started, singing romantic songs to get crazy female fans on side and then singing about screwing them and they’ll lap it up. The key was in the R&B for Thomas.

Because the fundamental problem with this album for me is actually a stylistic quality, that leads to the whole construction and meaning involved. ‘It Goes Like This’ is an R&B album, thinly disguised with 80s rock instrumentation and sprinkled with a few pinches of hip hop. I say thinly disguised – it took me a few songs to notice and then it became so clear how much they were all constructed in this way. But the problem with R&B when sold as “country” or rather “bro-country”, is that in its modern day form it grows around the subject of sex. If we look at any commercial R&B artist today, for example Neyo, it’s a mark of the genre to sing about a sexy girl in a club that he’ll screw later, or the sexy girl he’s just got with who he’s besotted with. So if we take it from this perspective, ‘It Goes Like This’ starts to make a lot more sense.

From opener ‘Whatcha Got In That Cup’, the shockingly bad electronic sounds and riffs and hip hop stylings (including Thomas rapping), clouded with 80s rock instrumentation that makes it a rather convoluted confusing mess, it’s a bit of a blind search for country music. If we remove the pedal steel and speed up the rapping, it would be indistinguishable from its friends on the R&B/hip hop charts, and it’s only these aspects that point towards a more southern push. But it’s not country, it’s just looking to convince, and the same goes for the blatant sex theme of the song. And I say theme, because that is the theme of this album. ‘Take You Home Girl’ is another example, the same R&B/80s rock/sex formula, with a few token references to trucks that tell country fans he’s totes on their side. Like, so country. He said farm, you only get farms in the country. I mean I’m a country fan, and I’ve seen a farm. Non-country fans have never even heard of farms.

Sarcasm aside (but why? I love sarcasm), it is worrying how little effort has been put into making music that’s creative and meaningful. I must make a distinction in that this is not real substantial R&B, made by amazing musicians and producers, but rather that terrible commercial stuff that hangs around the top of the charts and on the music channels. ‘Get Me Some of That’ is another one (although I must admit it has a hella catchy – though stupid – chorus), and ‘Call Me Up’ is practically an exact copy of Luke Bryan’s ‘Crash My Party’ lyrically (is it just me or is everyone doing those songs lately?). Musically it has a very Motown/soul feel and that saves it, although not within this genre. I’m sorry (actually I’m not), but you can’t make music of a different genre, market it as another, and just say you’re “expanding” the latter genre. THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE. That’s not expanding, that’s just messing with the system, and it’s not a system that needs to be rallied against. I’m all for crossing genre boundaries, but do so creatively, make something new, and don’t market it as one thing! Just market it as one of those vague genres like indie or something, if you absolutely have to. Country music is a lifestyle, an ideology and a people, the most deep-rooted cultural genre in that respect, and you can’t just mess with it because you fancy selling more records.

‘In A Minute’, ‘Front Porch Junkies (Remix)’, and ‘Sorry For Partying’ are electronic/hip hop/R&B/ugly rock party anthems in a whole new brand of obnoxious, annoying and soul destroying. If I wanted music to get wasted/high to, I would go listen to another genre. Which of course this is, hiding and laughing at everyone lapping it up. Country fans, wake up and stop being idiotic. ‘All American Middle Class White Boy’ is another one, and not only is it a catastrophic attempt at being Eric Church, it’s laughable in its combination of hip hop, some vague metal sounds and “rebel” attitude. Thomas wouldn’t know a true rebel or outlaw if it hit him in the face. And the fact that he calls himself middle class but claims he grew up in the sticks, well, I have a little bubble to burst. Middle class is not your average American, it’s decidedly higher up socially and financially, and everything about this song and album annoys me.

In fact, the only decent song on here is ‘Beer With Jesus’, the rightful closer. Stripped back, acoustic, and actually country, it’s the only meaningful one here. Perhaps they thought a song of faith was a surefire way to make Thomas credible through all this idiotic party stuff, and I think it worked with fans and industry folk alike. Painting a story of sitting down for a beer with Jesus and asking him a ton of questions about life, sometimes the lyrics are ludicrously simple, but others delightfully thoughtful; it’s kind of ruined towards the end by some R&B and soft rock sounds coming in and trying to fill the mix where it wasn’t necessary, but at least it provides some much-needed substance. It doesn’t make sense on ‘It Goes Like This’ though, it sounds ill-placed and actually doesn’t deserve to be surrounded by such destruction of good music.

So where does this leave us? Certainly not fans of Thomas Rhett. Once again we have a contender for pushing “country” music to its absolutely limits in 2013, and prodding the “bro-country” debate until it’s close to bursting. Where will this end? Hopefully with Thomas leaving to make music more suited to its marketing, but ultimately I wish the bubble would just burst already. It might be a little more interesting than this tripe.