Jake Owen’s “Beachin'” (Review & Semi-Rant)
Jake Owen, my man. You know I love you for calling out country that’s all about “fuckin’ cups and Bacardi and stuff like that” and giving my man Tony Martinez a big break on your “Days of Gold” tour. But “Beachin'”? Really?
What’s going on here folks is now that Kenny Chesney has been put out to pasture by the country music powers that be, somebody has to step up and fill the void for swaying, stupid, sand between the toes sonnets of suburban escapism for 40-something women with skin Cancer on their shoulders to hold their Corona Lights high in the air to and scream “Whoooo!” while breathing in the smoke of their Home Depot citronella tiki torches. Kenny Chesney ruled this territory for years after kissing the rings of the Godfather Jimmy Buffett who then bestowed to Chesney the scepter of shitty beach songs which Chesney presided over for a good ten years. Now Jake Owen and others are stepping up to fill this void of what apparently is a must-have staple of the American country music radio dial.
As much as hearing even the opening stanza of a corporate country beach song can make a distinguishing music listener pucker harder than trying to down a cheap Mexican beer without lime or salt, Jake Owen and “Beachin'” makes this exercise even more excruciating by featuring him rapping, yes, rapping the verses … yo yo. And to this end, Owen delivers what has to be the worst white boy rap performance that has ever been proffered to human beings for public consumption that isn’t meant to be taken as ironic. I guess his voice is supposed to be all low and sexy, but the ultra-monotone and lifeless pitch makes Charlie Brown’s teacher sound like Loretta Lynn.
And of course as one could anticipate, this song doesn’t really go anywhere. Is the term “Beachin'” supposed to be a lyrical hook that delivers some sort of payoff? Because it’s about as unfulfilling as Daytona Beach when you’re dreaming of Cancún. How did this thing crack the Top 5 on the country charts? About the only redeeming feature of “Beachin'” is the butt of the leading lady in the video. And guess who’s the producing mastermind behind “Beachin'”? Joey Moi, the architect of Nickelback and Florida Georgia Line.
I still don’t know what happened to Jake Owen’s other single “Days Of Gold”. It was pretty much terrible too, but at least it moved, had a rhythm, and was written by The Cadillac Three. There was something redeemable there beyond it being obvious bro-country pap, but somehow that one stalled at #19 on Billboard and was abandoned by his label, and this drivel is the one to become Jake’s big hit.
Come on Jake, leave the rapping to Kanye, the beach to The Beach Boys, and practice what you preach about delivering more substance to radio.
Two guns down.
Possible conclusions of the above video:
1) All a wet dream.
2) Girl gets mangled in a horrible car accident, resulting in an ultra-sappy love song.
3) Jake’s label doesn’t pony up to produce the next video because of budget cuts from the parent company.
June 4, 2014 @ 11:37 am
I’m a big Jimmy Buffett fan but he’s the king of the gulf & western, island escapism songs. I’ve never been able to wrap my head around why Music Row is so bent on having younger, pop-country counterparts to him. If people want to hear those songs, Mr. Buffett has plenty of them and they’re a heck of a lot more well written.
June 4, 2014 @ 3:57 pm
Agree.Buffett songs had different stories to them,ulike this crap. (70’s-80’s Buffett I’m talking,before the 20 piece backing band)
June 4, 2014 @ 6:55 pm
You’re absolutely right. I like most all of Buffett’s material but the stuff from the 70s especially is top notch. Those songs are so well written. It’s almost an insult to contract these guys with Buffett (though Jake Owen has some decent songs) because most of this drivel isn’t anywhere close.
June 4, 2014 @ 11:39 am
What bugs me about so many of these bro-country records is the way the lyrics ring false. Nobody ever used “beachin” to describe a day at the beach, and if Owen’s girlfriend really put $20 in the tip jar to get a reggae band to play “Don’t Worry Be Happy,” she got overcharged by $19.50. But the worst thing here is the smug tone of Owen’s rapped verses. It’s rare for me to want to reach through the radio and punch anybody in the face, other than the guys in Florida Georgia Line.
June 4, 2014 @ 1:00 pm
Is Jake Owen really “bro country” It seems like his music appeals more to females than guys. Whenever you go to a beach or college town in the South and you have a generic cover band when they play Barefoot Blue Jean Night or Days of Gold girls go crazy.
June 4, 2014 @ 3:05 pm
“the worst thing here is the smug tone…”
100% agree!! Makes me wanna slap a mofo.
June 4, 2014 @ 11:39 am
So disappointing. Jake Owen’s debut album had a couple of clunkers, but overall it was pretty solid. What the hell happened to him?
June 4, 2014 @ 12:17 pm
I know “Tell Me” was great. the problem with that album is that beyond “Don’t Think I Can’t Love You” it didn’t do much so his label went with what they knew would work. Jake can still write good songs.
June 4, 2014 @ 4:54 pm
I’m glad to know he’s still got those deep, meaningful songs in him. I just hate that they just come fewer and further between anymore.
June 4, 2014 @ 11:42 am
First sentence of the second paragraph……. Priceless bahahahahaha, but sadly true
June 4, 2014 @ 11:51 am
“We need more of those kinds of songs in [country music]. “We need more songs than just songs about tailgates and fuckin”™ cups and Bacardi and stuff like that.
The above from the post a few months back………………….It appears Mr. Owen just pissed all over that theory. This turd of a song is excactly what Mr. Clown was putting down. Add him to the list of Douchebags!
June 4, 2014 @ 12:03 pm
Well at least the song wasn’t about blue jeans 🙂
But seriously this song is pretty bad. I agree with Matty T. Leave the beach songs to Buffett, who’s actually good at them. Owen has a good voice and then it gets wasted on songs like this. I sometimes wonder if the Music Row executives have planted chips in these artists heads and control their every move. It would explain their willingness to sing these shitty songs. And money of course.
June 4, 2014 @ 12:58 pm
Hey Josh,
I’m just curious about something. I noticed that you said Jake has a good voice. Does the fake Southern drawl not annoy the crap out of you? Am I the only one who is annoyed by this? Almost all of these new bro singers do it. The two worst seem to be Jake Owen and Dustin Moore.
June 4, 2014 @ 1:41 pm
*Justin Moore
June 4, 2014 @ 1:43 pm
Yep, thanks
June 4, 2014 @ 1:54 pm
Yes, of course it does. “Beachin'” and “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” make me want to drive my car off the road. But I’ve heard him sing without the fake southern drawl and he sounds pretty good. His real voice is probably not “marketable” and doesn’t fit their preferred sound. His earlier songs sound more genuine. Dustin Lynch has a bad fake southern drawl too.
June 4, 2014 @ 2:10 pm
“The two worst seem to be Jake Owen and Justin Moore.”
Uh, you haven’t heard Miranda Lambert or Florida Georgia Line, have you? For Miranda, I’d point you specifically at “White Liar.” For FGL, you can go with pretty much any song, but “This is How We Roll” is the most ridiculous. Inbetween the forced twang of the chorus, Tyler Hubbard suddenly switches to an ingratiating mock gangsta rap voice whilst never losing the “twang.” Even when he just “sings,” he never really sounds like anything but a douchebag. The hell, at least Justin Moore sounds somewhat sincere. Clint Black, Ricky Van Shelton, Tracy Byrd, where have you all gone? We need some people that can actually SING.
June 4, 2014 @ 2:14 pm
Yeah, Hubbard would be third on my list. Jennifer Nettles is much worse than Miranda.
June 5, 2014 @ 1:53 am
You know, I’d totally forgotten about Jennifer Nettles. Of course, the strongest feeling I ever had about any of her songs with and without Sugarland was simply annoyance at that overcooked twang. Given that I largely ignore the radio and that Sugarland has been on hiatus since around 2011, my ears have had a nice respite from the sound (even if some of the actual material was good, “Stuck Like Glue” notwithstanding). With that in mind, I’d agree that she’s more annoying than Miranda, but I think that’s more from her overly emotional performance style than her actual voice. Miranda, as far as the material and her inflection of it is concerned, is much more subtle even if the twang is still forced. Plus, on “Automatic” she toned it down to a bearable level, whereas Nettles has remained about the same since day one (no doubt in an attempt to “counter” the obvious poppiness of the music).
June 5, 2014 @ 1:21 pm
I’m from around the same area as Miranda Lambert and I can tell you her accent isn’t fake but it definitely seems pretty exaggerated. If she wasn’t laying on that East Texas accent as thick, she’d probably sound a lot more like Kacey Musgraves.
June 5, 2014 @ 3:29 pm
Whereabouts, Trainwreck? I spent a fair bit of time in Sulphur Springs in the ’90s and 2000s…
June 4, 2014 @ 2:15 pm
Maybe this anti-bro sentiment that many mainstream country artists have been peddling is just a more subtle version of the new outlaws ideal? After all, it might make more discerning country fans less offended by crappy songs like this if we think to ourselves “well, it’s okay if THIS person does it because they’re on our side.” Another example of this would be Ronnie Dunn’s recent album. Perhaps all of this is just manufactured angst? What do you know, next we’ll be getting country grunge from these guys.
June 4, 2014 @ 3:31 pm
You could be onto something here, but I think Ronnie Dunn really is on our side. He just tried to straddle the line on his latest album and attempted to appeal to the mainstream and traditional crowds. He still thinks he has commercial and radio viability in this bro country environment. I think his next album will be more traditional.
June 4, 2014 @ 4:01 pm
Money, the root of all evil.
June 4, 2014 @ 12:09 pm
Ya’ll ever been to Daytona Beach….it’s more like backfat, bathsalts, and faygo. None of that shit he is talking about. Did anybody else notice how he was holding the margarita?? PINKIES OUT BOYS!!!
June 4, 2014 @ 12:54 pm
“it”™s more like backfat, bathsalts, and faygo”
Ha!
June 4, 2014 @ 1:29 pm
Ha, that’s the first thing my wife (a Florida girl) said when she heard the song: “Why would he pick Daytona Beach?”
Also, every time I hear the chorus, I swear it sounds like he says “cocaine” instead of “cold cans.” Which would at least make the song a little interesting.
June 4, 2014 @ 1:56 pm
“Ha, that”™s the first thing my wife (a Florida girl) said when she heard the song: “Why would he pick Daytona Beach?” ”
Spring break Broseph!
June 4, 2014 @ 2:14 pm
I’ve actually spent a decent amount of time in Daytona Beach and didn’t find it terrible or anything. There’s definitely some cool spots down there and I don’t want to come across like the water’s poisoned there. It just seems a little strange as a place to pick for something like this. Even more strange, Jake Owen is from Vero Beach.
June 4, 2014 @ 2:57 pm
“Daytona invokes NASCAR, so we still appeal to those redneck bumpkins.”
I guarantee that’s why “Daytona”.
June 4, 2014 @ 12:30 pm
The end of the Days of Gold video ended with “to be continued…”
The end of this one ended with “to be concluded…”
Get excited for one more.
June 4, 2014 @ 12:50 pm
Good God … that was awful! I only got 30 seconds into it, but I will never get that 30 seconds back! I have to stop reading your rants and bash reviews. Don”t get me wrong, they are great but I need more lemonade from my lemons. Keep up the good work!
June 4, 2014 @ 12:52 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t that other guy that called out modern “cuntry”, you know, the guy with the massive beard who wears toboggans in July, also have several of these beach songs. I thought he was the one taking over for Chesney.
June 4, 2014 @ 1:39 pm
I think multiple artists are taking it over. In the review I said, “Now Jake Owen and others are stepping up to fill this void…”
June 4, 2014 @ 1:14 pm
Okay Jake you cashed in, can you go back to stuff like Alone with You now? I’m a fan of Buffett, Zac Brown Band and even Kenny Chesney to an extent, but this is just a watered down virgin margarita. Yuck! Watch for the next major artist who calls out how bad country music is, cause they’ll probably be the next to sell out. It’s like tempting the devil I swear.
On a side note: if Chesney has been deemed irrelevant by nu-country anyway, I hope he drops the beach boy thing and continues the trend of songs like You and Tequila and El Cerrito Place, two of the best singles of his career.
June 4, 2014 @ 1:32 pm
Just gave Days of Gold a listen and I kinda liked it. At least it sounds like something I could actually party to if I was in the mood. He overdoes the southern thang a bit, but I’ll take it over that unlistenable rapping.
June 4, 2014 @ 2:03 pm
I enjoyed Brown’s beach songs, even though “Toes” got annoying after a while. I’m glad he’s getting away from those songs and more into southern fried rock country. I’ve never had a big issue with Chesney. But I did hate “Boys of Fall.”
June 4, 2014 @ 2:46 pm
I liked “Toes”, and still shamelessly admit I do.
It has a little more driving it than your typical beach song. “Toes” is actually following a narrative arc, for one. In the first verse, a protagonist who is tired of the noise and stress and helter-skelter modern life of the city surrenders to the tropics and swears he isn’t going back. But, as time goes on, he feels like he is being pinched for every penny he’s got and, when he finally goes broke, he feels the hunger to return home and finds a replenished appreciation for the simple life he had back home: even if it’s as mundane as drinking cheap beer on a lawn chair. There is a faint underlying blue-collar pride driving this song.
Most other beach songs lack a storyline arc or sense of complete narration. It’s just laundry-list fare: replete with non-sequiturs of everything “island country” (tan lines, iced cold beer or rum, lying in the sand, girls in bikinis, etc.)……….driven by an easy-listening sound with token steel drums and ukulele.
*
I will say the Zac Brown Band’s more recent stabs at “island country” songs have been annoying, however.
“Island Song” is just cringe-worthy with Brown’s lame attempts at impersonating a Rastafarian vocally. And “Jump Right In”, while not bad, sounded like a terribly lazy, recycled mix of their previous songs “Knee Deep” and “Let It Go”.
June 4, 2014 @ 1:20 pm
Worst thing to happen at a beach since Jordan Vandersloot
June 4, 2014 @ 1:38 pm
Burn!
June 4, 2014 @ 2:18 pm
When Jake Owen shares the same producing DNA as Florida-Georgia Line and Nickelback, and the usual suspects in Music Row’s homogenized songwriting cadre including Luke Laird, Shane McAnally, Dallas Davidson and Chris DeStefano are peppered all across the record’s songwriting credits………….it should come to no surprise that “Days of Gold” is an album replete with the very mindless fare that Owen called out in his oft-quoted earlier remarks.
*
“Beachin'” is definitely the worst offender on the album, though.
Actually, on the subject of the verse vocals, I don’t consider it “rapping”. If anything, I think Owen was trying to impersonate Shawn Mullins’ style of spoken-word delivery. Granted it’s ear-hemorrhaging embarrassing, but I consider it an ill-fated form of spoken word instead of rapping.
If anything, it’s actually the chorus that gets on my nerves even more than the verses. At the very least, vocals aside, the verses sound fairly stripped back and actually complement the laid-back vibe the sing-along is aiming for………….only to then be greeted by a chorus that sounds processed and synthetic to death. Granted this is that type of song that was probably recorded only for an obligatory live show staple, but in the studio it just sounds agonizingly grating.
I won’t even dignify the lyrics with a dissection because they are basically the same old, same old Chesney palaver who had already ripped off Jimmy Buffett minus the wit and intellectually curious air that often influences his discography………..except backed by hip-hop production elements instead of 80’s stadium rock guitars. Lawn chair? Check! Tan lines? Check! Margaritas? Check! Blonde hair? Oh, it would be a felony overlooking that detail! 😉
*
The saddest part in all of this is that we know Owen is at least better than this. “What We Ain’t Got” is a decent offering on his current album, and as far as where catchy meets relative quality is concerned, “Life of the Party” is a decent track I can get behind as a subsequent single due to the nuance it strikes between broken-hearted lyrics and lively production. “Ghost Town” follows a trope (haunted by an ex’s memory) that has been tread to death, but even that is passable.
Yet, his very worst is what’s seeing the light of day at radio.
June 4, 2014 @ 2:30 pm
Made it exactly 20 seconds into the song. It burns! It burns! Oh god my ears! Terrible piece of sh** song.
June 4, 2014 @ 2:44 pm
I firmly believe spoken word sections and rapping are two separate things. Still an awful song.
June 4, 2014 @ 2:49 pm
Like I mentioned above, I actually think Owen is trying to impersonate Shawn Mullins and his style of “talking” lyrics in the verses instead of singing them.
It’s like they listened to his hit cover of “Lullaby” and said: “Hey, we should like, you know, write a country song about……..like………..going to the beach! Only this time, instead of singing everything, we’ll do what Mullins did!” -__-
June 4, 2014 @ 9:37 pm
You’ve mentioned “My Faith in You” as one of the good songs on Brantley Gilbert’s new album–the spoken word section in that song makes me think of “Lullaby.”
June 4, 2014 @ 10:40 pm
I see your point, and I agree it caught my attention and wasn’t exactly sure what the purpose of that was.
At risk of sounding hypocritical here, I understand, I nonetheless don’t feel like the spoken-word cadence gets in the way of “My Faith In You” because it is a brooding, affecting song about one’s faith being tested and questioned. I think that sort of delivery actually suits a brooding sort of temperament well enough. It isn’t a stretch in my view.
With “Beachin'”, I just don’t get why it even exists.
June 4, 2014 @ 2:51 pm
If the margarita is frozen, it ain’t a margarita.
June 4, 2014 @ 8:54 pm
It’s a smoothie.
June 4, 2014 @ 3:13 pm
The fact that Owen, like others, saw the benefit of complaining about the direction of country music after his popularity had waned doesn’t make him an authentic country musician.
Maybe he is and maybe he’s not.
Seeing him produce this type of CD is no shock to me.
June 4, 2014 @ 3:59 pm
Trigger, completely agree with the review. I want to know if you’re going to publish a review of Brantley Gilbert’s new album. I know he gets a lot of shit on here, and yes, his marketing team is making him out to be a douche. But I’ve been a fan of his long before anyone knew who he was, and I’ve personally met the guy when I walked past his tour bus and he was outside smoking. He’s actually a really nice guy and very down to earth in person. But besides that, his new album is pretty damn good. The sales apparently have been incredible. While yes, there’s more of an 80s rock sound to it than classic country, that’s who his influences are. Even though a few songs are shallow bro songs, some of them are actually deep and very interesting musically. Anyway I was really hoping to hear your thoughts on it, be it a rant or actually a decent review. I know you probably dislike the guy personally but your thoughts are always interesting. I’ve been checking the page every day hoping for your review and haven’t seen it yet
June 4, 2014 @ 4:12 pm
I may post a full review for it, haven’t decided yet. Sometimes the best way to cover an album like that is to review the singles. I’m also planning to do an article, not a review, on how well the album has sold, but I plan on a lot of articles that eventually don’t get written, and don’t plan on a lot that do. If I feel I have enough important stuff to say about Brantley’s album, then I’m sure I will be posting a review eventually.
June 4, 2014 @ 4:00 pm
Trigger”¦you pointed out one important thing to me in this article. I have long compared FGL to Nickelback, without knowing the pedigree. Thank you, oh so much, for bringing in that little nugget. True, I could have uncovered it with a cursory glance over the production credits of the two”¦but that’s why YOU are the journalist, and I’m just another wanna-be country artist fighting the fight. Keep up the solid work.
June 4, 2014 @ 4:59 pm
That blonde gal in the video does have a cute butt although not quite in the league of Aussie pop country artist Chelsea Basham at the 2:36 mark in her music video for “I Make My Own Sunshine”. Chelsea is even patriotic about showing off her assets! (lol)
Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJNFF_N5ngs
June 4, 2014 @ 5:43 pm
I only watch the video to see if I can verify your definition of what constitute a nice ass. You’re right, she does have a nice ass. And you’re also right about this song sucking.!
June 4, 2014 @ 7:32 pm
Not a fan of the song, but I don’t find the talking bit Jake does here nearly as annoying as true rapping. As someone above said, I put them in two different categories. I could probably get into the groove of the song if I’d just finished playing a game of beach volleyball and was chilling as it was being played live, but I won’t be buying it.
June 4, 2014 @ 8:06 pm
Just about all of this album contradicts Owen’s previous comments regarding bro-country songs. That being said, I must admit I bought the album and enjoy most of it when looking for something upbeat on a summer day, but it has little substance beyond that. I hope this is the type of album that sells well enough to give Owen more freedom on his next. My assumption is that he did not intend to contradict himself but simply fell to the pressure of his label (not a great excuse). I like his sound and think he has a place in country music when he sings the right songs. On the deluxe version of Days of Gold, bonus songs “I Like You A Lot” and “After the Music Stops” are somewhat redeeming from “Beachin”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43cNsNKUhfo&feature=kp
http://tasteofcountry.com/jake-owen-after-the-musics-stopped/
June 4, 2014 @ 11:34 pm
It’s more insulting to the intelligence, than anything, why Owen made those remarks to the press………..like we wouldn’t find out otherwise.
All in all, I’d not recommend “Days of Gold” at all, but there are a few moments that hint at Owen’s key strengths: which are charisma, likeability and a serviceable vocal style. That can’t be said for quite a few “bro-country”-centric entertainers: who are either charismatic but have painful vocals, have serviceable vocals but come across as dull and lacking a personality, or are simply unlikeable and seem like douchebags.
To Owen’s credit, his songs avoid sounding douche-y. His songs are hard to love in how bland they are, but are often hard to hate either aside from this one. I consistently get the sense that he is a genuinely down-to-earth kind of guy I’d probably enjoy a cold beverage with that truly loves his fans and what he’s doing even if I can’t get behind the kind of music he makes. The same just can’t be said for, say, Chase Rice and Jason Aldean.
And, in a few instances, “Days of Gold” has passable moments. “What We Ain’t Got” is decent. “Life of the Party” is pretty solid for a probable future single contender. “Ghost Town” is passable. With at least three stand-out moments that are consistent with his comments to the press, and other tracks at least as respectable as the ones I listed above, I can come around to liking him plenty more than I actually do.
June 5, 2014 @ 6:45 am
Very good points. I think he is at a crossroads. Right now, traditional country fans can find one or two songs on each record, coupled with his likable personality, that keep him from being considered a complete bro-country douche. You are dead on in that so many of his songs are hard to hate/hard to love. I was against the whole album the first time I heard it on spotify but then found myself listening to it again. Basically, the album has just enough glimmers of hope for me to say lets give him a pass on this one and wait for the next album before we completely throw him to the dogs.
June 4, 2014 @ 8:20 pm
It’s happened several times now that I’ll give a whole album a listen, and the worst songs wind up getting released as singles while the better ones don’t see the light of day. 1994 and Take a Little Ride come to mind but it keeps happening.
Maybe the to be continued is ghost town. Same actors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCHorn1GSLY
June 4, 2014 @ 8:30 pm
I’ll take a kenny chesney beach song over this stupid shit any day of the week. Remember when Chesney was chirped for not being country enough… he’s too country for country radio now. really makes you appreciate country from years ago
June 4, 2014 @ 8:56 pm
Yuck. I need a bucket.
June 4, 2014 @ 9:13 pm
Ghost Town will be the next single most likely. It’s the third part of the series of videos.
June 4, 2014 @ 9:41 pm
What I find even scarier than this song and every other trend-chasing cookie-cutter ( your genre here ) song on mainstream radio is that SOMEBODY IS PAYING MONEY FOR IT ….. a LOT of SOMEBODYS in many cases. Am I the only person who finds that a frightening and disturbing fact ? I mean , we’ve been reading ” dumbing down of America ” articles for a few years now but for those of us who refused to believe them , we now have the huge popularity of this crap to prove it . Its fast-food music ….assembly- line production and completely devoid of any nutritional ingredients . In your ears and out your ass as quickly as possible . As long as you continue trying to digest it , you’re guaranteed to always be hungry .
June 4, 2014 @ 9:44 pm
You know what I would love? If we as COUNTRY MUSIC listeners didn’t have to sit through one more song with a “beach” or “vacation” theme.
Enough already with this tired, overdone trope.
June 5, 2014 @ 10:12 am
Fuck, this is far from Chesney’s style. Kenny has some duds, but he has some pretty decent songs to sit on a beach with.
Jake Owen is like the dude that is dating the daughter of the record executive. “Dad, my boyfriend who mows lawns, he is a singer too. Can you give him a record deal? Please Daddy!!!” And here we are 5 years later.
June 5, 2014 @ 10:13 am
Oh and Jake (and his fans) if I am way off in my assessment of him, that is his fault because that is the only conclusion I can draw from the shit like this he puts out.
June 5, 2014 @ 8:48 pm
Comment may not be unjustified given this single, but the guy has songs with a lot more depth and a great voice. Too bad the radio isn’t rewarding these songs. This is one he wrote when just getting started.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X_ynsdLHwI
June 6, 2014 @ 1:07 pm
I would say that is a pretty unfair assessment. Does he has songs that are written to be radio hits to untrained ears, yes, but he has a lot of good songs. Looking through this thread, its not like with other artists where everybody uses the same song to back up their opinion that he/she is a legitimate artist. Everybody here has listed different songs as to why Owen can still be legitimate, he has quite a few. The comment by HaydenLane that Owen’s albums are usually balanced with solid country songs and made-for-radio songs is pretty dead on (while Days of Gold certainly favors the latter). Is Owen a model of all that is right in country music? no, but he at least puts himself in a spot where he makes for a good debate. Which is why I believe your assessment is incorrect.
June 6, 2014 @ 1:08 pm
Does he have*
June 6, 2014 @ 6:15 am
I’m pretty sure everyone complaining about Jake contradicting himself completely misunderstood what he said. Jake Owen said he loved thesefeel-good party songs, he just thinks there is a need for more variety. His albums usually show a little bit from all sides but could we really expect anything else to be released as a Single? ‘Bourbon In Kentucky’ got pulled from the radio for being to slow and serious, so honestly, ‘What We Ain’t Got’ and similar songs wouldn’t stand a chance.
I understand that this is about as predictable as it gets, but I’ll be a fan of Jake’s as long as he has some solid album cuts. When variety is a goal there’s going to be some good and some bad.
June 6, 2014 @ 10:23 am
You know, I can’t even be annoyed by this song compared to the “Big Smo” single that is being advertised daily on the local Clear Channel stepchild station here. I know there’s too many for you to rip apart, and Owen is covered here because of his previous comments and the fact that he is bigger and actually charting.. but I really want to see a rant on that atrocity.
June 15, 2014 @ 9:15 am
Why was Kenny Chesney hung out to dry by the powers that be? Is there a reason for it?
July 20, 2014 @ 7:57 am
You guys are obviously native English speakers and ur so professional about slang. Anyway I’m just a girl from outside the US and wants to know some info about the actor and the actress, they’re both very good-looking to me. Can u help? Thanks.
July 26, 2014 @ 9:59 pm
http://tasteofcountry.com/jake-owen-beachin-remix-t-pain/
Talk about insult to injury! -__-
Immediately after being alerted that Brantley Gilbert and Valory will be releasing a remix of “Bottoms Up” to Mainstream Top 40 radio featuring T.I., I also learn that a remix of this will be serviced to pop radio as well that will feature T-Pain and Mike Posner! =X =X =X
The brass-knuckled, barbed-wired body blows just keep on coming, don’t they? -__-
July 27, 2014 @ 5:21 am
Damnit. I keep trying to like Jake Owen but that is just terrible. I want to believe that he truly respects country music and just enjoys being musically diverse but wtf. I saw him a few weeks ago and he brought out Tony for one song and the crowd loved it, Why can’t he lean more in that direction? Every night when he brings Tony out he has thousands of people telling him “hey, we like this, you could get away with doing this more often”, but instead he tries to get away with this garbage. I don’t mind any artist letting other styles influence their music if it adds something, but this remix is making a bad song even worse just to try to keep some cash rolling in.
July 27, 2014 @ 1:26 pm
As much of a broken record as it is to utter, I believe record companies and even many recording artists underestimate their fans and their musical taste buds.
They’re cynically-minded in that they ASSUME more traditionally-flavored country music, or progressive music that maintains country soul, is a relic of the past and has minimal to no selling power. Yet, as you pointed out, even many younger fans are responsive when Owen wears that side of him on his sleeve/
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I entered this remix expecting T-Pain’s signature, insanely Auto-Tuned vocal to be the worst part of it. No, no…………..it’s actually Mike Posner’s rap and its lyrics that are the nadir! =X =X =X
To be honest, while I have disliked each mainstream “country rap” remix or experiment over these past several years, I can at least say I have found the raps that the featured rappers have offered inoffensive lyrically for the most part. Ludacris generally ratchets up the raunchiness in his standard fare, but on the remix to “Dirt Road Anthem” he restrains himself and, to his credit, actually sounds engaged and energetic as opposed to Aldean’s self-serious mono-toned delivery. Then, Nelly’s chorus on the “Cruise” remix was definitely embarrassing with the “Hey country girl, this country boy…” nonsense, but I can at least say none of the lyrics on paper were painful to listen to and were actually pedestrian more than anything.
The only high-profiled “country rap” experiment I can say which was absolutely painful to listen to lyrically so far has been the Joe Diffie/D-Thrash experiment titled “Girl Ridin’ Shotgun”. The first verse is actually clean on paper, but some of D-Thrash’s lyrics just come across as creepily misogynistic in the second verse including “She’s the girl of my dreams, she gives me everything. Wearin’ short shorts or some tight blue jeans.” On their own, I know some of you would say it’s no big deal, but in the form of a couplet it just gives off this impression that she’s only the girl of his dreams because she dresses the way he expects a woman to. And I don’t want to dare beginning to over-intellectualize that “she keeps her motor clean” lyric! 😉
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But where previous lyrics from featured rappers in “country rap” remixes were actually inoffensive and unremarkable, this…………THIS………..really takes the cake for not just lyrical awfulness, but cringe-worthy absurdity, courtesy of Mike Posner.
Lines like “I don’t tan brown, but I f*** real good…” or “I can give you lovin’ but I cannot be your husband.”
I mean, look: as a sex-positive educator and advocate, I believe that more and more Americans are becoming curious about alternative types of relationships and are open to no-strings-attached sexual relationships; myself included. But the complete lack of self-awareness on Posner’s part with regards to who primarily listens to country music (which is rapidly gravitating to younger demographics but still is much more family-centric and socially more right-of-center) renders this painful to listen to. Even worse, it’s how Posner sounds rapping: where he sounds like a fifteen-year old minor going through puberty (for the record, Mike Posner is 26 years old).
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I’d rather not have any of the above experiments ever touching the airwaves. But this remix to “Beachin'” is actually the first one (that actually became a hit, unlike “Girl Ridin’ Shotgun”) where the lyrics to the guest rap were more painful to listen to than the song as a whole! -__-
July 27, 2014 @ 1:52 pm
This has become one of the dumbest trends I’ve seen in awhile. Yes, it worked for ‘Cruise’ but that’s it really and all it does is further alienate potential fans of some of these acts in an effort to expand to a demo that isn’t that interested.
It is definitely true that younger people are much more likely to bounce from country (or what is known as country now) and hip hop than they ever have in the past but in my experience it’s one or the other not a mixture. If they want ‘country’ they are more inclined to go with FGL and the like and if they want hip hop they stick to the best of that genre. And it can’t be pointed out enough that the rappers on these remixes are almost always past their prime and desperate to stay in the game. Jay Z ain’t making no remix of ‘Donkey’. These are the reasons, beyond the suckitude, that almost all of these remixes fail in my opinion. There is no demand for this garbage.
The fact that Mike Posner graduated from Duke, supposedly one of the top ten universities in this country, never stops amazing me.
July 27, 2014 @ 2:07 pm
Yeah, I can’t imagine Jay-Z latching onto this bandwagon myself.
Still, wouldn’t it be shockingly hilarious to imagine Sage Francis showing up on a remix of Dylan Scott’s “Mmm, Mmm, Mmm”? Or Aesop Rock on a remix of Chase Rice’s “Ready Set Roll”? 😉
July 27, 2014 @ 7:25 am
LISTEN…..AND UNDERSTAND!!!
Those bro country artists and their fans are out there….
They can’t be bargained with…
They can’t be reasoned with….
They don’t feel pity or remorse!!!
They don’t feel shame!!!
And they ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT STOP!!!! EVER!!!
Until COUNTRY MUSIC is DEAD!!!!
August 17, 2014 @ 7:40 pm
you know when you hear something that makes you feel good, then it has to be good . thanks Jake Owen.
December 11, 2015 @ 4:46 pm
One of the worst things I have ever heard….even for today’s “country music”, it is still one of the worst. It is a sad, sad time for America when this shit makes the charts. I’d rather hear forks stabbing my hearing out and see spoons digging my eyes out than to ever hear or see anything this bad ever again. I just don’t understand how anyone, ever could actually enjoy this horrible garbage. Words cannot describe how bad this and all the other radio “country music” is. Idiocracy is closer than I though. Buy a Sturgill Simpson or Whitey Morgan record. Or, better yet, if you actually enjoy this none sense, go die quietly somewhere.