When you hear Spring Break, what comes to mind? Lying out on the beach? Relaxing, having a good time with friends? Luke Bryan’s latest album, “Spring Break … Here To Party,” revolves around the concept of Spring Break.
While Bryan does a decent job of demonstrating he knows how some college students feel about Spring Break, by the time you get to the third track, “Buzzkill,” that’s exactly the turn the album takes.
Bryan’s album is mediocre at best. With such intelligible lyrics as “If you ain’t here to party/You picked the wrong place/You picked the wrong Friday night/You’ll be missing out/On the best damn time of your life,” from the fourth track, “If You Ain’t Here To Party,” it kind of makes me wonder how he made it this far as a musician.
The artist fits nearly every stereotype of country music in this album. Almost all of the songs on the album mention drinking and pick-up trucks.
Don’t let me forget his impression of a woman in the song “Little Bit Later On.” If I didn’t already dislike the album from the first four tracks, the fifth track is what would have done it in for me.
I always have hatred, for lack of a better word, for artists who don’t write their own music. No, not even that, but artists that can’t even sing about songs that can relate to their lives to make it somewhat believable.
But that’s not even the case with Bryan. He’s mentioned before during interviews that he does write his own music. That just makes this album even more confusing to me.
The man is 36 years old, so why is he even singing about Spring Break in the first place? He’s married with two sons, why is he singing about other girls?
The sixth track brings back some credibility to Bryan with “In Love With The Girl.” But it almost seems too forced. I understand not saying the name of the girl in order for your fans to relate the song to their personal lives, but did he really have to go with ‘the girl?’ Sounds like he’s compensating for something, as if he’s trying too hard to convince everyone that he really likes this girl.
The creepiness of his lyrics does not end there. He has a song entirely dedicated to sorority girls.
Basically, the entire song is mentioning different sororities. We get it, you were a frat boy in college, that was more than 15 years ago, get over it.
Bryan has had success in the past, so this album may just be a fluke. Last year he won every single award for which he was nominated at the American Country Awards, which include Artist of the Year and Male Artist of the Year. He won six awards alone for the song “I Don’t Want This Night To End,” including Single of the Year, Single by a Male Artist, Music Video of the Year, Music Video by a Male Artist, Most Played Radio Track and Most Played Radio Track by a Male Artist. He also won Album of the Year for his sophomore album, “Tailgates and Tanlines.”
This year, Bryan has been nominated for Entertainer of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, Album of the Year (for “Tailgates and Tanlines”) and Vocal Event of the Year at the American Country Music Awards.
Before listening to the 10th track, I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. Considering the track is titled “Love in a College Town,” I figured it would be talking about finding the one you love while you’re in college, which is something a lot of people can relate to, including Bryan himself (he married his college sweetheart in 2006).
Instead the track was about a one-night stand with these wonderful lyrics about not being able to pay attention in class, “I’m gonna fail this test/Thinking about your dress/Layin’ on my floor/Runnin’ out the door/A-A-B-A-C, that sounds good to me.”
What surprises me even more is the fact that this isn’t Bryan’s first Spring Break album. This is his fifth.
Some of the tracks that are featured on this album were also featured on previous albums, which has me questioning, if you’re going to reuse songs, what’s the point of putting out a new album in the first place?
None of his previous works were even recognized, so why he keeps making these albums is beyond me.
The first two did not make the Billboard U.S. chart or the Billboard U.S. Country chart. The third made it to No. 6 on the Billboard U.S. Country chart and No. 23 on the Billboard U.S. chart. His fourth Spring Break album topped off at No. 2 on the Billboard U.S. Country chart and No. 9 on the Billboard U.S. chart.
The only song on the album that could somehow relate to Bryan, is the song “Cold Beer Drinker,” where he talks about how he has responsibilities but he likes to kick back at the end of the day with a cold one in his hands.
Review by Savannah Sawyer, Assistant Features Editor.
These are 4 song CDs he writes and records very quickly. The only reason he even does this is because he loves spring break. He still writes and records many country number 1s that are not associated with his spring break albums and is probably the hottest name in country music, so maybe do a little more research before you write an article.