Jason Aldean's latest studio album, They Don't Know, highlighted many of his greatest strengths as an artist, including melancholic performances and a nuanced emotional viewpoint. However, his most recent single, the title track, fails to capture many of those qualities, and instead relies on many of Aldean's worst habits.
While hardly a terrible record, "They Don't Know" is reliant on cliches and a formulaic structure that is reminiscent of his past work, and none of his better efforts at that. The guitar work lacks depth or nuance, while the lyrical content fails to rise above the blue collar pandering that was all the rage in the early 2010s. Aldean, who demonstrated a certain level of emotion on stellar tracks such as "Fly Over States" and "Amarillo Sky", doesn't deliver with even a subtle level of emotional intricacy.
The track isn't particularly offensive, as the melody is relatively strong and Aldean is fairly technically proficient over the course of the record. It certainly doesn't reach the bottom of the barrel in ways that efforts such as "1994" did, but provokes an indifferent reaction more than anything. On an album with its share of strong recordings, "They Don't Know" feels like settling on Aldean's behalf.
Grade: C+
Listen: "They Don't Know"
While hardly a terrible record, "They Don't Know" is reliant on cliches and a formulaic structure that is reminiscent of his past work, and none of his better efforts at that. The guitar work lacks depth or nuance, while the lyrical content fails to rise above the blue collar pandering that was all the rage in the early 2010s. Aldean, who demonstrated a certain level of emotion on stellar tracks such as "Fly Over States" and "Amarillo Sky", doesn't deliver with even a subtle level of emotional intricacy.
The track isn't particularly offensive, as the melody is relatively strong and Aldean is fairly technically proficient over the course of the record. It certainly doesn't reach the bottom of the barrel in ways that efforts such as "1994" did, but provokes an indifferent reaction more than anything. On an album with its share of strong recordings, "They Don't Know" feels like settling on Aldean's behalf.
Grade: C+
Listen: "They Don't Know"
