Album Review – Trace Adkins’ “Something’s Going On”
The trouble with Trace Adkins has never been a lack of talent. The dude has one of the coolest, baritone and bass singing voices in all of modern country music. The bigger problem with the Trace Adkins career track has always been his terrible, terrible song selection. From “Honky Tonk Badonka Donk” to the puppet sex of “Brown Chicken Brown Cow,” cool voice or not, the lack of a governor on what Adkins chooses to record ultimately has made his career a punch line, and made him more caricature than a country music artist.
Adkins’ personal life has also become an adversity to keeping his career going now into his 50’s. From divorce, to brawling with one of his own impersonators, to turning in a drunken performance at a children’s charity benefit a while back, Adkins has burned through whatever do-overs, Mulligan’s, and good will chits he’s accumulated over the years. Appearances on Celebrity Apprentice might keep your name in the spotlight, but they sure don’t help your country cred. By 2015, Trace Adkins’ alcohol consumption wasn’t the only thing in need of rehabilitation.
After a stint in rehab, and after becoming one of the last artists out the door at Toby Keith’s virtually defunct Show Dog label (don’t forget to hit the lights), Trace Adkins has re-emerged as one of the initial signees of the new Wheelhouse Records division of Broken Bow. Perhaps Adkins would learn from his past mistakes, and start taking the music more seriously. The first signs we saw from this new era of Trace Adkins were images of him standing there with his hat in hand, a little slump shouldered and contrite-looking, more svelte than in recent memory, like he was ready to turn a page and put a serious effort into making meaningful country music.
The first couple of songs we heard from his latest record Something’s Going On seemed to echo that new leaf turning. Would Trace Adkins actually be one of those rare mainstream country music stars that decides to grow old gracefully with his music and fans instead of trying to keep up with the young pups and current trends? At the age of 55, could he perhaps put out one of his best recordings? “Jesus and Jones” was a song idea done dozens and dozens of times. Jamey Johnson, who helped co-write “Honky Tonk Badonka Donk” can attest to that with his song “Jennings and Jones.” But it showed some promise that perhaps Adkins was over the shenanigans, and was searching for better songs.
“Watered Down” wasn’t a great song either, but it was a really solid effort. Trace’s problem, like so many mainstream artists, is not that you can’t find a few good songs on his records, it’s that they’ve let the worst songs of their careers define them by releasing them as singles. No matter what Something’s Going On ultimately delivered, it was going to be prefaced as a more personal effort from Adkins. If nothing else, this was a better strategy than just releasing Bro-Country anthems through someone who can sign up for AARP, and hope radio would play ball.
So with this cautiously optimistic perspective, you cue up Something’s Going On, and the first thing you’re hit with is:
You’re so cool, so hot
Shakin’ that thing with everything you’ve got
In your jeans, and your boots
Makin’ all the country boys go ooh ooh ooh!
Yep, and there goes any and all good will out the window.
Give Trace Adkins credit for cutting more personal material with “Jesus and Jones,” and “Watered Down.” But that’s about where the positivity for Something’s Going On begins and ends. “Whippoorwills and Fright Trains” is fine. “Gonna Make You Miss Me” would have been a good premise, but like most of this record, it suffers from this list-tastic approach to B-level Bro-Country songwriting and production that makes this record forgettable, or at least you’d like to forget it unless you’re scarred from listening and you can’t.
First off, dispatch any ideas of how “personal” this record is to Trace Adkins. Yes, this is good marketing, but if it is so personal, why did it take 28 different songwriters to compose, and not one of them was named Trace Adkins? There are some decent songwriters here, like Craig Campbell, Max T. Barnes, and Andrew Dorff, but there’s also Shane McAnally, and Josh Osborne. The problem for an artist like Trace Adkins trying to record and release radio-relevant material is that they’re never going to give him the best cuts. Those are all reserved for the A-level arena stars. So he has to settle for the stuff with outdated modes and lackluster hooks. It’s like the worst of both worlds—the music holds no substance, and it’s not radio relevant either.
The opening number “Ain’t Just The Whiskey Talkin'” is just the start. Get a good snoot full of “Country Boy Problems” or the godawful “Lit” with its Disco licks and you’ll be seeing red unless you count yourself as part of the Florida Georgia Line/Luke Bryan faithful. You think it’s creepy to hear the 40-year-old Luke Bryan still singing about hooking up in clubs like he’s a 23-year-old? Wait until you hear Grandpa Adkins wheezing as he tries to squeeze himself into leather pants and keep up with the night life. “Still A Solider” has a nice sentiment, but like most all of these songs, it’s pandering. “Hang” tries to be heartfelt in that sort of Luke Bryan “Drink A Beer” way, but ultimately fizzles.
Trace Adkins had an opportunity here. Just as much as the music is important in 2017, so is the narrative behind it. Listeners want to be able to connect on a personal level with the artists they listen to, and sensing the need for a reset, Adkins was smart to try and move on from the romance novel cover boy with silly songs attitude that has defined his career, and he does so in moments of Something’s Going On. But he only want a quarter of the way in, and then chickened out and said, “Hell, give me whatever you think will work on radio.”
It’s hard to transition from the arenas to the clubs, and Broken Bow wouldn’t have taken a chance on Adkins if they didn’t think there was still some mainstream tread left on these tires. But “Jesus and Jones” didn’t crack the Top 40, “Lit” never even registered on the charts, and “Watered Down” will have an uphill battle. Meanwhile traditional country fans aren’t going to give Adkins a chance because of his history, and how this record starts off.
Let this be a lesson for artists in this aging demographic: Don’t even worry about the radio. Just do you. It’s not going to be commercially successful anyway, so you might as well greet the twilight of your career in control, and with some of your dignity still in tact. Trace Adkins tried to do this in Something’s Going On, talking about sobriety and slowing down. But he ultimately fell back into his old habits.
1 1/2 Guns DOWN (2.5/10)
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April 4, 2017 @ 10:20 am
Spot on!!
April 5, 2017 @ 4:08 pm
Love Trace Adkin latest something going on..he always 100 percent with putting the best music I wish radio would give him more airtime..
Love all Trace Adkins music….perfection…people goes through things day to day.
April 4, 2017 @ 10:58 am
I tried to like it, and will still give it a listen probably this weekend, but yeah, not where he needs to be right now. He needs to stay out of the clubs and do more age appropriate material.
April 4, 2017 @ 11:05 am
I give this review 2 Guns Way Up (10/10).
Adkins could’ve gone down in Country music history as one of the all time great vocalists. It really is a shame that he opted to urinate all over that opportunity for most of the last 20 years.
If you want to get a real good taste of what could’ve been, go back and listen to, “The Rest of Mine”.
https://youtu.be/5jAbCSgbyZ0
April 4, 2017 @ 11:16 am
This may have been Adkins final opportunity to pull his legacy out of mediocrity. He started on the right track, and veered into the ditch once again.
April 4, 2017 @ 1:18 pm
I think the next album will be good once he realizes his commercial days are caput. this one is a bust cause the bros are not gonna buy it and nethier are traditional fans only probably about 5000 of his hardcore followers
April 4, 2017 @ 4:36 pm
I keep wishing he’d do an album of pure, unapologetically hardcore Country music, just nothing but unadulterated Country music. It would be a treasure to closed-minded traditionalists like me.
But you know, I don’t think he ever will. I don’t think it matters much to him. He seems to love most of the crap he’s sung.
April 4, 2017 @ 11:06 am
Lit.
You’re fucking kidding me Trace.
April 4, 2017 @ 11:10 am
Their are songs that make me cry, happy, angry etc. All of these songs feel personal to me, & I connect to them personally, even though I didn’t write them. Conversely, Carrie’s DV songs, she may have written them, but they don’t have much to do with her life. I think it’s to simplistic to say didn’t write it equals it isn’t personal. Miranda Lambert didn’t write “House that Built Me” but I don’t think anyone here would say it wasn’t personal.
Also, I think we expect artists to have better taste in music, and maybe they just don’t. At some point, maybe Trace just likes songs like Brown chicken, brown cow, and that’s why he records that stuff.
All of which isn’t to say I like it, or the album. I think it stinks just because I think it’s dumb & it’s not the type of music I like.
April 4, 2017 @ 11:14 am
I agree an artist doesn’t have to write the song for it to be good, or even personal. Sometimes the most personal songs were written by others because you’re not capable of writing about some of your most personal feelings as well as somebody else. But Miranda Lambert, for example, at least has a hand in writing much of her material to qualify the “personal” touch to the writing on an album. When you haven’t written even one song, and multiple songs are written from a 20-something perspective and you’re 55, it’s hard to characterize it as “personal.”
April 4, 2017 @ 11:22 am
More a general comment, I’ve seen a version of that same criticism here (& other places) fairly often, including obviously in this review. And (for me) that’s to generic a criticism. Your last sentence is better (for me), in that it states why you find it impersonal, as opposed to just relying on, he didn’t write it.
April 4, 2017 @ 2:21 pm
I have posted Ad nauseum on this website over the years, including in dedicated articles, about how a good song is a good song, and artists shouldn’t be solely judged if they write their own material. My go-to example is Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger,” which is regarded by many as the greatest country album of all time, and Willie Nelson, a songwriter, only wrote 1/3rd of it.
The problem here is not that Trace Adkins didn’t write his own material. The problem here is Trace Adkins didn’t write his own material, much of it is written from a 22-year-old perspective when he’s 55, and we’re being sold that this is a “deeply personal album” from Trace. Bullshit. That’s marketing. That doesn’t mean all artists must write all their own material, but I know when I’m getting hoodwinked, and that’s what’s going on with the “deeply personal” nature of this album aside from a few songs.
April 4, 2017 @ 2:36 pm
I think to consistantly make good full length albums you are going to have to write a lot of your own stuff. Sure some all time greats like George Jones didn’t write much but they also weren’t at all consistantly releasing top notch material. And, usually after about 5 albums the wealth of ideas has run dry and if your career continues you won’t ever reach people the way you did with your earliest releases – with rare exception and this goes for all genres of music.
April 4, 2017 @ 2:38 pm
On the other hand, the album cover looks sincere. Perhaps the only thing that seems sincere and authentic in the album,
April 4, 2017 @ 11:24 am
I hear what you are saying but at the same time, let’s agree to disagree NOT all singers are songwriters. Artists from back in the day rarely wrote their songs irrespective of their age
April 5, 2017 @ 9:16 pm
True, just look at George Strait or Tim McGraw. Personally I like artists in the CU/KC vein that can sing other people’s songs but also contribute a decent handful of their own writing as well. I know Underwood and Chesney are not necessarily the type this readership follows, but that’s not my point. IMO, Trace’s best work was There’s a Girl in Texas, a song he wrote.
April 4, 2017 @ 1:42 pm
Here’s my take on this subject… for me it’s not about a song being personal, age appropriate, written by an artist, written by a professional songwriter, or written by a committee. It’s more about the place a song comes from than the person or people a song comes from.
My problem with a song like “Lit” is that it’s immediately apparent the songwriter(s) had nothing to say and said it anyway. It didn’t come from a feeling. It didn’t come from an experience. There’s no beginning, no middle, no end. It came from a barb-less hook and I can’t imagine the writer(s) had any fun writing it. The only reason that song exists is to pitch to Nashville artists. It’s not a fun campfire song. It’s too wordy to be a good live song. It’s only worth is that it sounds like the rest of the garbage on the radio.
With thousands of songwriters with massive catalogs of material, good songs are available. Hell, dig deep and there are great songs available. However, artists like Trace Atkins might stumble on a good or great song, but what they’re looking for is a hit song. It’s too bad that good songs and hit songs have, at some point, become almost mutually exclusive.
April 4, 2017 @ 5:46 pm
”The only reason that song exists is to pitch to Nashville artists. It’s not a fun campfire song. It’s too wordy to be a good live song. It’s only worth is that it sounds like the rest of the garbage on the radio.”
This
April 4, 2017 @ 11:19 am
Watered Down is a fine song. But, what rhymes with lit? Give me a minute, I’ll think of it…
April 4, 2017 @ 11:20 am
Songs like “The Rest of Mine” and “Every Light In the House is on” really show what he is capable of. It’s a shame hearing songs like this from him.
April 4, 2017 @ 11:21 am
An artist doesn’t have to write a song for it to be personal, we need to realize that not all good singers (like George Strait, Tim Mcgraw, Patty Loveless, Faith Hill, Trisha Yearwood) are good songwriters and also not all good songwriters are good singers (Cole Swindell). A good singer takes a song and makes it their own based on their connection to the song…
April 4, 2017 @ 11:38 am
Just so I understand, are you saying Cole Swindell is a good songwriter or a good singer?
April 4, 2017 @ 11:51 am
He’s an above average songwriter, he should have stuck to his day job
April 4, 2017 @ 12:31 pm
Sticking to his day job, you mean being Luke Bryan’s smedium tshirt boy. At least Luke’s other old side kick, Craig Campbell is legit.
April 4, 2017 @ 11:45 am
I will never understand artists who use 25 different writers on an album. A cover song or two is ok, but what happened to creating your own music and style? Is this laziness or record label requirement?
April 4, 2017 @ 11:58 am
100% agree with this review. While I tried to forget the single release of “Lit” ever even occurred last year (because it is that dreadful), I had high hopes after the release of “Watered Down”; while not the best song, it still is something someone his age should be singing about and, therefore, felt genuine. Sadly, that song seems to be one of, if not the only, the high points of this record. Love your last paragraph: “Don’t even worry about the radio. Just do you.” Seems like such a simple concept for us as fans, but must be difficult for these artists/labels to grasp.
April 4, 2017 @ 12:26 pm
Spot on Trig. I kinda chucked with “Lit “especially with Criswell or the other four writers trolling some of the corny catchy country music lines that gave us the worst 4 yours in country yet they backed it up with a bro poppy track. Mother of god. Even Nash Icon trashed the album but did it subtly. That’s bad. Honky Tonk Badonkadonk was one my favorite dance hall songs at one time. Chalk it up as guilty pleasure. I’m a Louisiana Native living in Austin for the past 19 years( yet I guess like Tim McGraw, I am subconsciously trying to cling on to these fellow Pelican State artists. Glad Tim is tying to revert back to trad. Call it a bayou bias perhaps, but this album is meh. He could of dressed Jesus and Jones with a little more of the trad sound, but I agree with your been there done that take. Give me back The rest of mine, and every light in the house Adkins. Trace got suckered into this heavy different instrument play. Give me old school Trace. I am starting to sound a like a broken record.
I noticed Trace is playing at the Golden Nugget in Lake Charles, LA in May. Don’t know if Trace is on the Bayou Country Music fest bill. Thu love Trace back home especially the Bayou boy DJs, but most just put his old stuff on repeat. Good work. Come on Trace, please come back and finish strong on the Backhalf. Got the pipes; just need drano.
April 4, 2017 @ 12:27 pm
I guess I am in the minority here; I feel the album was worth the wait.
April 4, 2017 @ 12:28 pm
I am going to get it. I bought every Trace Adkins album since he arrived in Nash. Might as well not stop now.
April 4, 2017 @ 1:07 pm
Take it back give me back Ricky Van Shelton.
April 4, 2017 @ 1:15 pm
“You’re so cool, so hot
Shakin’ that thing with everything you’ve got
In your jeans, and your boots
Makin’ all the country boys go ooh ooh ooh!”
Ha ha this is the kind of lyrics me and my classmates used to make up when we had nothing else to do…Maybe we should have sent them to a publisher… 🙂
Reminds of another song I think It’s a trad. called “Shake That Thing”
Here’s Mississippi John Hurt singing a short version of it. But I’ve heard other longer (and more explicit) version of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-DcmRhT-Fk
April 4, 2017 @ 1:25 pm
“You’re so cool, so hot
Shakin’ that thing with everything you’ve got
In your jeans, and your boots
Makin’ all the country boys go ooh ooh ooh!”
Really, Trace? Really? You’re 55 years old, Trace, grow the hell up. This is just stupid as all get out. Watered Down is actually pretty good, Jesus and Jones is meh, and Lit and Country Boy Problems are just absolutely gawd-awful.
The saddest thing about it all is that Trace has an amazing voice, but chooses to waste it on mostly crap.
But honestly, to Trace’s defense, yeah, Honky Tonk Badonkadonk is a stupid embarrassment to country music, but I would for sure take Honky Tonk Badonkadonk over Body Like a Backroad any given day. At least Badonkadonk is kind of a joke song. Body Like a Back Road is dead serious and scares me to death about the future of mainstream country.
April 4, 2017 @ 2:39 pm
Honkytonk Badonkadonk always seemed too self-aware to be taken seriously. In that respect, I always gave it a pass (even before I knew who wrote it). Besides that, it had a plot and some genuinely funny lines.
I agree with you… give me a (even lame) attempt at comedy over these artists who think their attempts at being smooth, serious, and sexy aren’t transparent, obnoxious, and laughable.
April 4, 2017 @ 2:06 pm
He has the voice but the production is awful.
April 4, 2017 @ 3:29 pm
From a comment on YT about “Lit”:
“Damn I miss country music like this I hate new country”
Discuss.
April 4, 2017 @ 3:58 pm
Somebody not paying attention.
April 4, 2017 @ 3:57 pm
You guys are too tough on this album.
“Jesus and Jones” isn’t “Body Like A Back Road.” Little Boy Rhette isn’t in a place where he can sing “Watered Down.” The title of “If Only You Were Lonely” might appear on a Chris Young record, but it could’ve appeared on a single by Wynn Stewart. “Country Boy Problems” can’t be sung credibly by Luke Bryan. “Lit” is the dance hall number on this record and will probably pack the dance floor better than anything wispy Americana can manage. “Still a Soldier” is taking sides with those who understand sacrifice as the highest value, not consumer choice. And are you now really that cynical to think Trace Adkins has no real feeling in “Whippoorwills and Freight Trains”? Here’s my cornfield take: Adkins is both a businessman and a singer, and at a buff 55, he’s man enough to play the table. In the end, I think he’ll bleed red.
Compared to the clueless shit show in Nashville, Adkins is still country. He wants to sell, but it’s in there. You’re right that he’s worth more than commerce, but a 2.5 is too low. In this day and age, this is a 6.
April 4, 2017 @ 10:06 pm
Sort of agree with this. 5-ish or 6-ish after my first listen. Forgettable more than terrible.
April 4, 2017 @ 4:03 pm
I am just wondering how a person or group of people can write a song like lit and still have a job as a songwriter. I mean it doesn’t even make sense it’s just clichéd lines that rhyme. If I wrote that song I would be embarrassed to let anyone hear it. The formula in these songwriting circles seems to be, pick a southern stereotype and rhyme something with it and you have a song. As a southerner I think these stereotypes are pretty tired by now, I mean how many people are fishing with dynamite and running a moonshine still. Trust me I know this stuff still goes on but it’s not prevalent like it used to be. Most people in the south fish with a pole and buy their liquor from the store.
April 4, 2017 @ 5:39 pm
Trigger …once again you’ve delivered the perfect analysis/review/overview/observations in a more-than – fair review. I’ve heard Trace Adkins all I need to without hearing this record . There is nothing there for me .
Watching the Awards fiasco the other evening brought to mind , again , an interesting observation , I think , on MY part.
Used to be , artists had such good , hookey ,relate-able ,singable songs that invariably one or often two or three became ” signature songs ” …or ”career songs” as some call it . I realized , watching the fashion parade the other evening that pretty much NONE of those throw-away acts have a career song …….or at least not in the same way as Johnny ( Folsom , Ring Of Fire , for instance , or Willie’s ” On The Road Again …Merle’s ” Okie ” or any of a half dozen others …..Kenny’s ” Lucille ” or ” The Gambler ‘ , Dolly has 5 or 6 of them at least . I mean even the ” veterans ” …the Urbans, the McGraws , the Chesneys , much less the Rhetts , Hunts etc… , DO NOT have a song that people ( ALL people ….not just soccer mom country fans ) ….people across the music landscape would be able to name or even recognize . That says something , I believe , about the arrtists’ approach to material ..TREND TREND TREND …….song and substance be damned . This stuff is built/manufactured to service the moment . That’s it ….to pacify , lull , placate a listener geared to trends and wanting to be seen as such . Fine . Each to her own , of course , but ANYONE who believes otherwise …..that they may indeed be listening to something ground-breaking , profound or even remotely necessary on mainstream country radio has GOT to be as vacuous as the material they are being duped by .
Damn ….got so carried away I burned my toast ……again ……shit !
If an artist was serious about recording great ,timeless universal ” country ” songs , they would understand that NONE of this shit fits that bill . Today’s ” artists” are all about the image , the fashion and the $$$$$$
April 4, 2017 @ 7:48 pm
What a shame. I had this in the hopper, but I’ll put it in the baler. I couldn’t tell if I really liked Watered Down or the bar was just lowered for Trace. What a wasted opportunity. Years and years ago I thought if I could produce one misguided artist, it would be Adkins – there’s so much good that could have be done with that voice. This review reads like his obituary.
“but there’s also Shane McAnally, and Josh Osborne” – I’m very happy to see that line in print.
Good job, Trig!
April 5, 2017 @ 7:55 am
I guess I’m in the minority for thinking Honkytonk Badonkadonk is pretty funny and an enjoyable song, but it’s a pretty bad sign that is the song he’s mainly known for. Too bad, he has a really good voice (maybe not Ronnie Dunn level but still).
April 5, 2017 @ 8:25 am
Remember when Adkins released songs like “Sometimes a Man Takes a Drink” and “I Can’t Outrun You”?
It’s been nearly a decade, but when the man gets it right, he absolutely nails it.
April 5, 2017 @ 11:33 am
Saw Trace two years ago; family had won tickets. Saw him years and years ago and put on a good show from what I remember; this is when we he was promoting songs like “I’m tryin” rather than “Brown Chicken, Brown Cow”.
Two years ago was a different story. Even the early stuff of his that I really enjoy, “No Thinkin Thing” for example, had a kicked up sort of pop drum beat. I can’t even describe it but it wasn’t the original… like they tried to slam some “Hot Mama” / “Rough & Ready” BS into it.
April 5, 2017 @ 5:47 pm
Why the fuck you gave this country classic’s great new album a shitty review?
April 7, 2017 @ 3:30 pm
I see the point within this review through and through. However, I liked the album musically. It is better than those pop songs that are on the radio as well as some of those so called “Texas Country” artists who also sound like pop (I’m looking at you Josh Abbott and William Clark Green). I do admit though that “Gonna Make You Miss Me” is pretty pop and bad, but I’ll hear this over “Sailors Guide To Earth” any day. The latter album is indecipherable and pretty loaded. Just a humble guy spreading his opinion is all.
September 24, 2018 @ 4:45 pm
You can keep your tractor rap and your bro country. Country music is dead and this shit is helping to kill it for good