Bucky Covington - Good Guys (2012)

Tracklist

01. I Wanna Be That Feeling
02. I'm Alright
03. Hold a Woman
04. Drinking Side of Country
05. Only Got So Much Time
06. Mama Must Be Prayin'
07. Sail On
08. I Always Said You'd Be Back
09. Mexicoma
10. I Want My Life Back
11. Gotta Be Somebody
12. A Father's Love (The Only Way He Knew How)


From the start, a large part of Bucky Covington's appeal was that he was indeed one of the good guys, the rare American Idol contestant who seemed to be part of the show for the sheer joy of it. It was enough for him to get far and enough for him to have a respectable 2007 debut but nice guys are hardly immune to the vicious arrows of the music industry. As he was hard at work on a second album called I'm Alright in 2010, his label Lyric Street went under and he was then a free agent, eventually signing with Entertainment One in 2011, who released Good Guys in the fall of 2012, nearly five years after his eponymous debut. A half-decade wait is a pretty effective way to halt career momentum, and matters aren't helped much by numerous awkward country-pop attempts peppered throughout the album. It's hard to tell how much of this crossover confusion is due to Good Guys being cobbled together through the remnants of I'm Alright and new recordings, or whether its muddled message lies at the core, with Bucky and his team being uncertain on how to move forward. Amiable guy that he is, Bucky tries everything: he'll sing a sun-kissed love letter to "Mexicoma" and in doing so deliberately evoke the memory of Kenny Chesney, he'll sing a hardcore country duet with Shooter Jennings on "Drinking Side of Country," he'll cover Nickelback's "Gotta Be Somebody," a bit of slow-burning soul on "Hold a Woman," a little bit of rocking country on "Mama Must Be Prayin," and a cover of Lionel Richie's "Sail On" that, given the timing, can't help but seem like a reject from Lionel's hit 2012 Tuskegee album. Bucky acquits himself well on all of these, possibly because they have big hooks and are given an impeccable shine in the hopes of reaching the widest possible audience, but the side-effect of this style-hopping - not to mention pieces of country corn like "I Want My Life Back" and "A Father's Love (The Only Way He Knew How)" - is to make Covington seem a little desperate for a hit. And after five years, who can blame him? But he might be better served next time around by picking one of these personas and sticking to it throughout a full record.

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