Okay, I will admit that I am in a bit of a bad mood because our lousy TV antenna isn't picking up the ACM Awards, and I'm missing the show right at this very moment. But I first heard Randy Houser's new song when I was in a pleasant mood, and it sounded just as bad then as it does now.
"I'm All About It" is the second single from Randy's upcoming album They Call Me Cadillac (The first single, "Whistlin' Dixie," missed the Top 20 by a long shot). When I first read the title, I did not have high expectations, since snappy catchphrases usually don't make very good country songs. "I'm All About It" definitely lived down to my expectations. It is the most cringe-worthy mishmash of lyrics I have heard lately. Much of the bland lyrical content sounds like a bunch of random rhymes clumsily thrown together (Thinkin' 'bout you, baby, all the time/ On my brain, honey, I ain't lyin'). Every line of this song either says nothing, or says too much. I really don't need to hear another song that's riddled with tacky sex metaphors - I'm still recovering from the last time I heard Jake Owen's "Eight Second Ride." The fact that the song is so badly over-sung only makes it even more irritating.
The one good thing about this song is the instrumentation. It's not enough to save the song, but it does offer a glimmer of hope. The guitar and fiddle have a Garth Brooks-like sound that we haven't heard much of lately. This is a musical direction that Randy would do well to explore further. But don't get your hopes up - the song still stinks to high heaven.
I might compare "I'm All About It" to a musical version of potluck stew. It sounds like a few songwriters got together, each armed with a lucky pocket rhyming dictionary, and threw together a bunch of rhyming couplets and innuendos just to see what they could come up with. The result? Not very tasty. If this song comes on the radio, I'm all about changing the station.
RANDY'S SCORE: 3
(Scores are given on a scale of 1 to 10)
