Dallas Davidson Attempts to Revive Country Rap with “Laid Back”
When I heard that Dallas Davidson was working on a new solo album, it sounded like just another stupid plan to offload his leftover Bro-Country material now that the songs aren’t selling so well. Harmless. Sure, release a solo album Dallas, and take one last gasp as the Bro-Country songwriting king before you’re relegated to the refuse pile of country music’s most deplorable era.
But apparently, Davidson is all serious about this and shit. I don’t know if he’s trying to get on the radio or make some big splash in the culture at large, but he’s recruited a bunch of rappers and other folks to collaborate with, and he just released a new single called “Laid Back.” And let me tell you folks, it’s a dog.
Before you even hear a peep of this monstrosity, your eyeballs are sent sideways just looking at the weird gaggle of humans Dallas has assembled to collaborate with on the track. Maggie Rose? This major label washout’s career has been so bad, she had to change her name from Margaret Durante halfway through trying to retool. Last time we heard from her, she was begging the Bro-Country boys to condescend and objectify her in the terrible “Girl In Your Truck Song,” and skidded to outside the Top 50 in the charts. Then you have rapper Big Boi from the group Outkast that hasn’t released an album in a decade, and some other 48-year-old rapping has-been named Mannie Fresh.
Where in the hell is Dallas Davidson dredging up these people? This assemblage of talent is the equivalent of plucking Kato Kaelin and Tonya Harding off the celebrity refuse pile.
As bad as “Laid Back” is on paper, the song itself is even worse. There’s a reason Dallas Davidson is known as a songwriter, and not a performer. Hearing him sing is tedious enough. Hearing him white boy pseudo rap over rehashed 80’s Casiotone beats while filching ideas from Florida Georgia Line is enough to rupture your spleen. And then Maggie Rose and her big bag of nothing comes in to sing a verse. Actually she would be about the only thing that’s half tolerable on the track if her lines weren’t ripped right from the lives of douche nozzles who hung out in the parking lots of Taco Bell in the 90’s, infused with reverse female Bro-Country Cole Swindell-style jibber jabber.
And then when the rapping starts, holy shit. I don’t know which one of these dudes it is, if it’s Mannie Fresh, the dude from Outkast, or both, but the words are so aggressively imbecilic and misogynist, it makes you think the only hope for humanity is the rapture. One of the first lines is about how they have their seat belts on so they won’t get harassed by the police. Yeah, real gangster guys. Then there’s the romantic line, “And my girl on the passenger side she’s classy but nasty, UH!” I think that’s what you call and oxymoron fellas.
Then there’s a verse that roughly translates to: “So when I’m asking you to pass me that bang bang, she gon’ do that and hold the saint, ain’t no chain gang.” Take it to mean what you wish, I guess.
Take this thing to behind the barn and shoot it. Dallas Davidson is so clueless of where things are headed. Perhaps he saw all the success his fellow Music Row songwriter Chris Stapleton was having with his career, and thought he could do something fresh. But Davidson and “Laid Back” are like your drunk racist uncle and his mullet—refusing to give up the fight despite the clear, insurmountable odds that time is against them. This isn’t just doubling down on country rap, this is Davidson refusing to come down off the mountain. The only people who even know the name “Dallas Davidson” are pissed off country fans who blame him for ruining the genre. Bro-country fans don’t give a shit who writes the songs.
Davidson still thinks that tractor rap is his golden goose, but when his upcoming album is released, it’s destined to be the oddity of Hastings discount bins in America’s backwaters. I’d rather hear Weird Al cue up a mic and make farting noises with his armpits than this fake rap bullshit. And I hope General Motors sues Dallas Davidson for ripping off their emblem for this white trash ode. Invest your royalty money wisely Davidson, because you ain’t going to be making much more of it headed in this direction.
Pew-wee.
April 25, 2016 @ 8:14 am
Well… He’s about the most offensive person in the world, so this is what I’d expect from him. This guy makes Aldean look like Charley Pride by comparison, and Aldean is a piece of trash that makes the mountains of garbage left behind at a Luke Bryan show look like a bed of roses.
And Maggie Rose’s dumb truck song is the only time I have ever contacted a radio station, and basically told them that it was an egregious piece of trash that entailed cultural backsliding and stuff.
and come on, this thing isn’t going to sell, Dallas Davidson is a nobody that most diehard Bro-Country fans wouldn’t recognize, and thank God his career is functionally obsolete, and unlike Betamax or Laserdisc it wasn’t even cool before going obsolete.
April 25, 2016 @ 8:27 am
In fairness, “Girl In Your Truck Song” died because her label shut down just as the promotion was getting underway.
Not that the song was going anywhere special – especially since the market was reacting well to the Maddie & Tae song – but it potentially would have lasted a little longer than it did. Especially since all the “bros” were plugging it.
(Obviously not the real point of your rant – but I’m just curious about the shot at her, given that I thought she had a lot of support among Internet/blogger/commenter types prior to the release of that song)
April 25, 2016 @ 9:41 am
I’m not Trigger, but I’d guess the reason for his ire in relation to that was that Maggie Rose could have been a substantive artist before she sold out so hard with GIYTS.
April 25, 2016 @ 8:29 am
I am not going to listen to that garbage of the song. I do not like to listen to this country (cough) rap crap. Dallas Davidson write a bunch of garbage songs in the past 4 to 5 years. We still have some bro-country stuff out here but I called this new generation crap nu-country. I know Maggie Rose career flopped big time.
April 25, 2016 @ 8:34 am
Is he signed to a major record label? If not, I’m not worried about this.
April 25, 2016 @ 9:00 am
That’s what we were saying about Kelsea Ballerini. But I don’t expect this song, or Davidson’s album to go anywhere. It’s a vanity project at this point.
April 25, 2016 @ 8:57 am
If I listened to this without knowing anything, I would swear that it was Uncle Kracker. It is awful, but if he ends up recording his own vanity projects instead of penning hits for major stars, that is a win.
The rapper on this track does indeed sound like Big Boi, confirming to me once again that Andre 3000 is the talented member of Outkast.
April 25, 2016 @ 2:48 pm
Big Boi is very talented, but even Andre couldn’t save this sack of shit song.
April 25, 2016 @ 9:02 am
Good God. I’m not even gonna attempt listening to this. Maggie Rose has by far been one of the biggest disappointments in mainstream country. I loved her album “Cut to Impress”. “Preacher’s Daughter” is an incredible song, not traditional country by any stretch, but still fairly country and a still great story song. Her career went to hell with “Girl in Your Truck Song”, however. I am a 19 year old college girl and am quite familiar with bro-country and bro-country fans. Sadly, I’m probably one of the only people my age that doesn’t buy into the bro-country bullshit. Sad what country music has become.
April 26, 2016 @ 6:20 am
Nope, I’m 18 and can’t stand bro-country, metro-bro….etc.
I’d like to think there’s more millennials pissed off at the state of country music than we think.
April 26, 2016 @ 9:39 am
You and me both. I actually stopped listening to country radio, because, really, there are only about 10 or less good songs in the top 30 right now. I spent one whole weekend with a stack of country CDs almost as tall as me, making mixed CDs to accompany me on my college commute. I’d much rather listen to Kacey Musgraves, Lee Ann Womack, Gary Allan, Ashley Monroe, Maddie and Tae, Jon Pardi, and other good country artists who care about country music and put effort into and truly love what they do, than listen to people like Luke Bryan, Thomas Rhett, Cole Swindell, Michael Ray, Chase Rice, and others who are only in the business for attention, to chase trends, and become popular. Country music has become a laughingstock, and we need artists like Kacey Musgraves, Lee Ann Womack, Chris Stapleton, Gary Allan, Josh Turner, Ashley Monroe, Dierks Bentley, Jon Pardi, William Michael Morgan, Mo Pitney, Maddie and Tae, Brothers Osborne, Tim McGraw, Carrie Underwood, Maren Morris, Mickey Guyton, and Miranda Lambert (and maybe a few others) to get mainstream country music back to where it needs to be.
April 25, 2016 @ 9:30 am
“The only people who even know the name “Dallas Davidson” are pissed off country fans who blame him for ruining the genre.”
That’s a great point. If anything, he’s probably damaging this song’s chances even further by putting his name on it.
April 25, 2016 @ 9:34 am
Wonderful review. Now I’m waiting for a gimmick account called Cole Swindell-Style Jibber Jabber.
April 25, 2016 @ 10:02 am
Do you think Dallas Davidson knows how to spell “drivel?”
April 25, 2016 @ 10:14 am
Judging by his track record, probably not. Let alone does he know what “drivel” means.
April 25, 2016 @ 10:06 am
Sorry, I posted this question on the wrong article
Trigger, this isn”™t exactly related to the article here, but have you read the idiotic piece written about Chris Stapleton in Taste of Country? According to Billy Dukes, Stapleton is going to fall down from the top the same way Jamey Johnson did- supposedly because he won”™t get played at radio. Granted, he makes a few fair points but he seems almost as oblivious to what is happening as Dallas Davidson
April 25, 2016 @ 10:17 am
To be fair, every “savior” type artist in recent memory (Jamey Johnson, Kacey Musgraves, Bradley Gaskin, Mo Pitney) has has either had one hit, or no hits.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Stapleton continues to put up big sales numbers but doesn’t score another Top 10.
April 25, 2016 @ 12:12 pm
Also Ashton shepherd too added to the list
April 25, 2016 @ 3:49 pm
Link?
April 25, 2016 @ 10:20 am
I guess anybody can make a country album these days.
April 25, 2016 @ 11:02 am
He knows the end is near for him and his empire of shitty music. Stapleton, Simpson, and Isbell have brought great music back to the mainstream. You were right Trigger, 2016 could be 1975 all over again.
April 26, 2016 @ 3:49 am
Speaking of Isbell, has anyone heard anything about him recently? I haven’t seen or heard anything about him since November
April 26, 2016 @ 5:59 am
He’s touring on Something More Than Free. I’ll be seeing him with Stapleton in mid June. He was on Colbert a month or two ago.
April 26, 2016 @ 8:59 am
Yeah, he’s still touring and such. He’s just between albums at the moment, and I think is on vacation in Hawaii as we speak. There was a big promotional push behind him around the Grammy Awards, and with independent artists, they usually can’t pay publicists full time to keep their name in the papers. He’ll be back in the spotlight soon enough.
April 25, 2016 @ 11:23 am
Sam Hunt sounds like Boxcar Willie next to this shit sandwich.
April 26, 2016 @ 6:51 am
I haven’t heard anyone mention Boxcar Willie in ages. I used to listen to him with my Grandpa growing up. Trigger should do a piece on him.
April 27, 2016 @ 10:43 am
Maybe a “Top 10 Badass Boxcar Willie Moments”. Except it would probably have to be two instead of ten.
April 25, 2016 @ 12:37 pm
Trigger, have you heard of Drake White: “Living the dream”…awesome country song I heard for the first time yesterday on mainstream. There may be hope, yet…this one, I met a girl (Jon somebody, I think), My Church, and there are a few others, and they are good. That pic of Dallas Davidson looks like a mugshot, BTW! : D
April 25, 2016 @ 12:46 pm
It IS a mug shot! 😉
April 25, 2016 @ 12:48 pm
Lol! I thought so! I just had to wonder why there’s a mug shot of this guy on here, but I guess since it should be a crime to mix country and c rap, I guess it’s rather fitting. 😀
April 25, 2016 @ 7:20 pm
Yes.He got into a bar fight last year and rattled off a bunch of homophobic and racist slurs in the process,yet music row made it go away (much like they did with Aldeans black face) and still embrace his shitty songs
April 25, 2016 @ 4:15 pm
Yes it is a mug shot; he got in trouble for something last year or two but I don’t remember what for. Trigger might know what happened to him.
April 25, 2016 @ 12:45 pm
The odd thing upon hearing this is, I wanted to get more worked up about this track but, ultimately, I just shrugged my shoulders and said “Whatever!” because I already gather how irrelevant this is upon arrival.
It was one thing when he penned “That’s My Kind of Night” and sent it to the top of the charts via Luke Bryan and have it become one of the most ubiquitous sulfuric earworms in all recent history. Here, you immediately gather this is just a vanity project that isn’t going to make any impression to even the Colt Ford crowd, and so you’re left saying: “Eh, I’m just going to save my energy on that new Cole Swindell song!”
*
Anyway, Dallas Davidson is absolutely devoid of charisma as both a vocalist and a personality, Big Boi’s usual charismatic charm produces little more than a forgettable, abbreviated verse here, Maggie Rose is spared to a mere eighteen seconds with nothing to say except that she loves to smoke and drink strawberry wine, and Mannie Fresh……………………..does whatever Mannie Fresh supposedly does here, I guess?
Yeah, besides having absolutely no country influences intact, nothing more really needs to be said about this. More power to Dallas Davidson if he just wants to do his own thing regardless of what anyone thinks. He’ll need all the self-confidence he can muster, because this will make barely any commercial impact whatsoever.
I’m thinking a Light to Decent 1 out of 10 for this. I know even that seems generous, but really it only gets a faint grace point because I already gather this irrelevant on arrival, whereas we’ve had to put up with “Break Up With Him”, “Beautiful Drug” and “Breakup In A Small Town” and watch them all top the chart. So the comfort you get from knowing this isn’t going anywhere barely distinguishes this from those tracks.
April 25, 2016 @ 1:28 pm
Was somewhat surprised to see that Big Boi was associated with this crap, not that I know that much about what he’s been up to lately. I have a miniscule number (less than 10) of rap albums that I bought in the late 90’s/early aughts and three are OutKast albums. Specifically, I thought Aquemini and Stankonia were really good and strong artistic statements.
April 25, 2016 @ 2:51 pm
He’s released a couple of pretty good solo records since Outkast’s last album, but he hasn’t been super busy. I’ve gotta say, I’m very dissapointed in him for appearing on this track since Outkast is one of my favorite music groups ever.
April 25, 2016 @ 6:02 pm
Yeah, based on what I’ve heard, both guys from Outkast are talented wordsmiths, but ol’ Big Boi is definitely not given much go work with here.
April 25, 2016 @ 1:50 pm
My 2 cents, went from partly shitty, to Super shitty at the 1:33 thingy, more funny stuff Trigg!
April 25, 2016 @ 2:44 pm
I “LOLed” when the rapping started and he talked about seatbelts and police not harrasing him. Total trash song.
April 25, 2016 @ 3:05 pm
Dallas Davidson: “Oh, let me tell y’all how country thug I am! I wear a seatbelt every time I hit them back roads! Yeah, that’s right, I obey the law, y’all! Oh, and hear this out! After I finish my beer, I always make sure I recycle the can! Yeah, can’t be litterin’ these backwoods, no sir! Ooooohhh, and I look both ways before I cross any street, I assist any elderly citizen when one needs help doing so, I say ‘Yes ma’am!’, and………………….oh yeah, I always clear my plate because I think of all those malnourished children in struggling countries worldwide and you won’t find me wasting food! That’s how country thug I am, b*****es!” 😉
April 25, 2016 @ 4:41 pm
Your post reminded of the “Will Smith Clean Rap” cutaway from Family Guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQjDSlVyGiU
April 25, 2016 @ 3:05 pm
Dear Dallas Davidson:
Please write a country song.
Sincerely, Pete
April 25, 2016 @ 6:12 pm
Dallas Who?
April 25, 2016 @ 11:40 pm
Stop calling it Country!
April 26, 2016 @ 1:29 am
OMG Trigger ….reading your review above is the first time I’ve pissed my pants laughing since I was 3 . I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it .
April 26, 2016 @ 1:42 am
Some thoughts on the songwriting, such as it is:
“…ride around the farm”? Really? You’ve spent all day working on the farm, you go into town to booze it up, and you finish the day by driving around the farm. Most farmworkers I knew would hardly relax by driving around their place of work.
“Laid back like the sun in the Georgia sky….” Again, really? Wikipedia says Davidson was born in Albany, GA, so when is this sun supposedly “laid back”? In July, when the average high is 93? I’m sure it feels “laid back” to work on a farm out in that sun. The Georgia sun is “laid back” compared to the United Arab Emirates, I guess.
“…old ploughboy gettin’ high after breaking his back all day…” I am from a rural area in Illinois. Maybe Georgia is different, but I never heard anybody use the term “ploughboy.” And perhaps I ran with the wrong crowd, but I never really knew any of them who spent their day working on the farm and then spent what little disposable income they had on recreational narcotics. They had to get up early.
“…steal a kiss….” Are we in fourth grade?
Re: going to the “5 & Dime” to get “smokes and strawberry wine.” Again, maybe “5 & Dimes” are different in Georgia, but I never knew one that sold booze and I’m not sure they sold cigarettes. And strawberry wine? 1975 called. It wants its booze back.
April 26, 2016 @ 2:31 pm
I’m from Albany, Ga. I don’t know him personally, but I know of people who do. Albany does have some rural areas out in the county, but he isn’t from that part.
I think he is trying to cater to that bro-country/country rap crowd one more time before that well runs dry. The tide in country music is slowly changing, thanks to the likes of Sturgill, Isbell, Stapleton, and etc…
April 26, 2016 @ 7:41 am
I have to give the king of the Bro sect his props: He’s a legend in his own mind. But he’s a sight gag in just about everybody else’s; and trying to revive “country rap”, which at its core is part of what Bro-Country is anyway, is just proof of that (IMHO).
April 26, 2016 @ 7:51 am
I am a divorced man who is a little older and well, I have been running wild with insecurity, feelings of my own mortality and what one would call a mid life crisis with a very expensive sports car and a swank loft apartment.
No, I am not cool. I am just trying to have fun to make up for the fact I did not have a family and wait, this isnt therapy this is Saving Country Music!
So, I date young women. Girls you can talk to. 18-19 years old.
They love my car, my pad and the tunes that blast from the speakers in both.
Dallas Davidson is not exactly a name to drop to make panties drop nor is it anything that would get played.
I would sooner shove a kazoo up my rear and play “Smoke on the Water” in an attempt to get laid.
(I totally did that in 1978 and it got me my first wife!)
Thumbs way down to this one. It will not be the jam of this summer as I sadly date girls who just graduated high school and should be my daughter or granddaughter.
I will die alone and it will be sad.
But nobody will have to remove a Dallas Davidson album from any of my digital devices or haul off the vinyl or CD version of it when all of my stuff goes up for auction because I have no family.
April 26, 2016 @ 10:04 am
Yo! My name is Dallas and I’m hear ta say
I’m the whitest rapper in da USA
I got fresh beatz for da country boiz
Gonna sing wit my homies and bring da noize
Gots Vanilla Ice and Waylon too
Love ta name-drop singers as I always do
So if you down with me don’ be alarmed
My music’s tight for da boiz on da farm!
April 26, 2016 @ 11:22 am
Haha!! 😉 that is hilarious!! And sadly accurate, as I can see him writing a song like this one.
April 27, 2016 @ 3:50 am
He should be happy that his “career” went so well up to this point and be thankful of all the money he made off tailgates and short shorts. Some good advice I heard once was that if you are not very smart and you win the lottery, don’t get greedy. You will soon go broke.
April 27, 2016 @ 9:32 am
Just been looking at all the so called country hits that Dallas has written or co-written over the past while. There are lots of them but I honestly can’t say that there one single hit song among them that I can instantly recall. Unfortunately, he won’t care as he’s made loads of money from writing dreadful music. More fool the people who bought into his songwriting and made him such a powerful figure in a genre of music that he and others like him have almost destroyed.
April 27, 2016 @ 10:49 am
There was a guy in my hometown named Dallas Davidson. He died in a car accident 20+ years ago.
Too bad it wasn’t this one instead.
April 27, 2016 @ 12:54 pm
I want to do a country music remake of Anal C–t’s “Mike Mahan Has Gingivitis.”
April 28, 2016 @ 8:35 am
The solution to ‘bro country’ and “rap country” would be to listen to Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd. REAL music.
April 28, 2016 @ 3:04 pm
Or Alan Jackson and Keith Whitley.
May 1, 2016 @ 11:38 pm
Y’all need to lay off this guy and think of him as a gateway for people who like rap to start liking country rather than ripping on him for crying out loud. You may not like the song but someone who doesn’t like country might and this song pulls them into our genre. Everything you guys are saying is why people are stopping listening to county. That is all. I love country for your information and a comeback story by Dallas would be a great story for the genre.
May 2, 2016 @ 10:41 am
“Y”™all need to lay off this guy and think of him as a gateway for people who like rap”
No thanks. All that does is lead to conflict within the genre. Instead of coveting everyone else’s fans, country music should focus on what it does best, and convert new fans that way.
May 11, 2016 @ 7:08 am
South Georgia likes it…. a little change never hurt anybody. Keep up the good work Dallas.
June 28, 2016 @ 4:21 am
Georgia…well that explains it. Seriously, though. What is it about Georgia that it is such a haven for this bro/frat/pop country drivel?
June 5, 2016 @ 12:44 am
Just heard the song yesterday. Not a country music fan, but I am a huge fan of Outkast. It’d be nice if the person writing this article knew what he was talking about. Not knowing the difference between Big Boi and Mannie Fresh is akin to confusing Waylon Jennings and Luke Bryan. Then there’s the fact that the author of this article apparently didn’t understand the lyrics. Plus ,Big Boi released an album last year in collaboration with Phantogram, sothere’s that tidbit of misinformation. Maybe a little research would help provide some facts for the next critique.
October 6, 2018 @ 9:33 am
This song is awesome. Dont listen to them D keep making good music. F the haters.