Monday, November 21, 2011

Album Review: Joe Nichols - It's All Good

Joe Nichols returns with his first album in almost three years. The "Gimme That Girl" singer, known for his more suave singing voice released his seventh album on November 8th. "It's All Good" has already produced one single, "Take It Off", which did not perform well.

The "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off" singer continues in his typical style, which is very similar to that of Kenny Chesney. It is a fun-loving, but romantic style, albeit without Chesney's beach tone to it. "Take It Off" and "The More I Look" embody this perfectly, with the latter having more of a bar party attitude and the former being more of a beach party.

"Somebody's Mama" tells the story of getting a tattoo covering up an angel tattoo from the past. The singer reminisces on a past love as he shares with the artist: "She used to say all she wanted babies/ And I was too young to slow down/ But I figure she's probably somebody's mama by now".

The next two songs, the title track and "This Ole Boy" return to the idea of life being perfect as long as he has his woman with him. In "It's All Good", Nichols paints a picture of everything around him falling apart, but as long as he is sitting in the shade with his love, well, you get the picture. "This Ole Boy", a song that will also appear on Craig Morgan's forthcoming album, continues that same feeling. Both are feel-good songs and either of them will likely end up as a single before he releases his next album.

"I Can't Take My Eyes Off You" is a romantic ballad that is sure to be sung between lovers for years to come. The Arkansas native does not care what is going on around him, whether it be two moons in the sky, a meteor shower or anything, he simply cannot stop looking at his girl.

After painting the picture of a perfect life with a perfect love for several songs, the "Brokenheartsville" singer takes a fall and hits the bottom with "No Truck, No Boat, No Girl". He acknowledges this fall in the chorus, as the song closes: "Seems like yesterday I was sittin' on top of the world/ Man ain't supposed to live this way/ No truck, no boat, no girl/ Some things just can't be replaced/ No truck, no boat, no girl"

Nichols returns to love for the last three songs of the album. "Never Gonna Give You Up" talks about all the habits, mostly drinking into the early hours, that he is more than willing to give up in exchange for a woman's love. "She's Just Like That" is a descriptive song about how perfect the woman is. Closing out the album, "How I Wanna Go" is a very reflective song, comparative like "Never Gonna Give You Up" in that it shows how different his life is since meeting his love. None of these songs stands out, but they are typical Joe Nichols, and none of them are bad either.

"It's All Good" is far from the strongest album that has been put out in country music this year, but it is far from the worst as well. Every song on the album is typical Joe Nichols, with him not taking any risks from the formula that has worked for him in the past. 6.5/10


You can pick up the album here from Google's new music store for $7.99

No comments:

Post a Comment