I, and probably many others, had high hopes for Days of Gold. I thought that Ghost Town was an excellent song, and Days of Gold was as catchy as it gets. Even though Jake Owen proposes us a few songs that are different from the rest of the pack, most of the album is a lot of the same. The song-writing is, put politely, simplistic, and the music is really generic at a lot of moments, much more than for his previous album, Barefoot Blue Jean Night. We do have some pretty good songs, like What We Ain't Got, Sure Feels Right and Ghost Town, but the album clearly lacks diversity and depth, sadly.
In interview Jake Owen said that he was taking great attention at what Florida Georgia Line was doing, because "whatever they are doing, it works." And this is a big cue to this album. Listening to it, I had the feeling that his style was diluted, that he was trying to make every single song as catchy as it could get with only one recipe. I think it's pretty nice to have dedicated party songs on an album, but to have 75% of the songs with this one and only focus? I think this is a pretty big mistake.
Not that song-writing was particularly stellar on Barefoot Blue Jean Night either, but at one point, there is no tradeoff between the "catchy" factor and the quality of the song-writing. It is possible to have songs that both sound good and feature a story with depth. Even though Jake Owen targets young people with his style, I think it's a mistake to assume that people are turned off by in-depth stories. Brad Paisley's success with younger generations clearly demonstrates this. Moreover, the album clearly lacks instrumental and musical diversity compared to his previous' ones, particularly Barefoot Blue Jean Night. A lot of songs sound like one another, simply featuring another theme. We have very few songs with volatility in rhythm, and most seem recorded with the same timing pattern. Of course, Ghost Town is the exception here, as I feel this song is one of the best he has ever made.
I won't lie, I was disappointed when listening to the album. Besides Ghost Town, there are probably no song that I will want to hear again in a couple of years like I'm just discovering them again, like it's the case for Eight Second Ride, Barefoot Blue Jean Night or The One That Got Away. We see a rupture in the style Jake Owen had developed and been successful with in his previous album, and in my mind this is a pretty big mistake. Instead of following on his recent success, and add depth to his style with songs with better song-writing and a higher level of instrumental complexity, he looked at what was successful this year (Florida Georgia Line) and tried to mix their style with his. Even though I think his album will sell pretty well, a lot of fans like myself could be disappointed with this and the direction he's taking.
7/10
Days of Gold
This was the first single, and to be fair, I was surprised by how little I heard it this summer. I thought it was a pretty good song, even though the lyrics are pretty basic and it's filled with clichés. But it's designed to be a summer song, so what can we expect?
8/10
Beachin'
Jake Owen said it in interview, he wants this to air when spring break comes. Again, it's made to be a single, let's see if it will be popular. I think it really sounds good, the music arrangement is quite different. The lyrics are again pretty dumb though.
8/10
1972
This song seems to be made to sound really similar to 1994 by Jason Aldean, but more country and less hip-hop (or whatever else Jason Aldean was trying to lean to with this song). The song is supposed to be catchy, and to be fair, it works pretty well. The lyrics are pretty bad though, which is already starting to be a trend on this album, and we are only at the third song.
7/10
Ghost Town
This is without a single doubt my favourite song of the album. It's catchy and really sounds different from the rest of the pack. We get a lot of plays with the sounding of the words, rhymes, etc. It's pretty good. The lyrics are again a weakness.
9.5/10
Life of the Party
The song is pretty decent, it sounds good, but there is really nothing exceptional about it, or anything particularly interesting. The story is nothing particularly interesting. It's just another try at making a catchy song, which is a trend with the album as we can see.
7/10
Good Timing
I could say the same thing that I said for Life of the Party. It's a pretty average song, the typical "we are young and in love" type of song, again with pretty bad song-writing. It tries to be a bit catchy, I think it's not very successful at it though.
6.5/10
Tall Glass of Something
It's an ode to alcohol, and it's awfully bad. If you want this sort of song, go take a look at Beer by Justin Moore, I genuinely like it better. Tall Glass of Something tries very very very hard to be a party song. We'll see if it succeeds.
5/10
One Little Kiss (Never Killed Somebody)
Even though the song-writing is again particularly generic, this song gives us a break from the other party songs (just a little though). This song is really repetitive.
7/10
What We Ain't Got
Ouf! A genuinely slow song. It's also pretty well-written, which is a total surprise. I think this is a good song, and it definitely brings much needed diversity to this album. This song has a bit of emotion to it, but the music is pretty simple (which could also be seen as a good thing in this context), I think it could have been much better.
8/10
Tipsy
The music is pretty generic, and the lyrics are too. This is another average song, it's not particularly bad, but there is nothing really interesting about it neither. It does get a little repetitive.
6/10
Drivin' All Night
The music is again totally generic, and lyrics are again and once more, pretty generic too! A total constant here. It's repetitive too, what a surprise ! He drives "all night" to go see his girl, how original is that?
6/10
Sure Feels Right
This song is pretty good. Jake Owen took the time to tell a story, took the time to have different ups and downs in the rhythm. Again, we are not faced with top-tier song-writing, that's not what I'm trying to say. But this song is a lot less generic than the bunch of others we had (at least in my mind), and it's a nice touch to finish the album.
8/10
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