Lainey Wilson- Whirlwind
Label: Broken Bow
Producer: Jay Joyce
In the two years since the release of her runaway fourth album, Bell Bottom Country, Lainey Wilson has emphatically graduated from promising newcomer to the country world’s newest darling and genre ambassador. With Lainey-mania running rampant (or Lainia?), Wilson even managed to accomplish what women like Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert were unfairly denied by the establishment, by snapping the drought of female winners in the CMA Entertainer of the Year category, becoming the first since Taylor Swift’s win in 2011. Compounding her importance to the format was that it all comes at a time when country music has the highest pop-culture profile in the music mainstream its seen in decades, and Wilson stands as one of those flag-bearers who has achieved success while planted firmly in the traditional country soundscape, without any aims for pop crossover. This humble loyalty to her roots is further emphasized with the twangy one-two punch of “Keeping Up with Jones” and “Country’s Cool Again” that opens the record, with the latter serving as a new generation’s “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool”, while actually sounding, you know, wholly country. Her duet with Lambert on “Good Horses” likewise serves as a highlight in this rootsy realm, while serving up an satisfying moment of star-power. That’s not to say Wilson isn’t open to incorporating other stylistic elements into her brand, with Jay Joyce’s crackling production once again adding natural blends of rock, blues, funk and soul into the mix. She again demonstrates that her voice is sublimely suited for those tasty nuances on moments like the muddy Muscle Schoals-leanings of the hit, “Hang Tight Honey”, or the burning country-soul of new single, “4x4xU”. But as previous hits like “Things A Man Oughta Know” and “Watermelon Moonshine” have proven, Wilson’s greatest powers flourish when she’s rendering a wrenching country ballad, as she does here with moments like “Broken Hearts Still Beat”, “Middle of It”, and the weepy “Whiskey Colored Crayon”, which would have been insufferably maudlin in less capable hands. The twangy teardrop force of legends like Tammy Wynette and Lee Ann Womack are strong with this one. There’s no denying that she has a tendency to occasionally overstay her welcome in country’s stereotypical affinity for hammy, Hee-Haw-styled corn like on “Counting Chickens”, but she undeniably possesses the charm and genuine humility to master this realm as well, which she does on the bluesier “Ring Finger”. Regardless of whether every swing she makes results in a grand-slam, Wilson shows a confident conviction and assurance in her artistic identity that is utterly refreshing. It’s this quality combined with her natural gifts for entertaining and storytelling that have made her one of the most relatable and rewarding superstar breakthroughs we’ve witnessed in recent memory. Whirlwind is a fiery and emotional extension of that story, and one that deserves, and is likely destined, to become of the definitive records in Nashville’s latest gold-rush era.
Track Listing:
- “Keep Up with Jones” (Lainey Wilson, Josh Kear, Wyatt McCubbin)
- “Country’s Cool Again” (Wilson, Trannie Anderson, Aslan Freeman, Dallas Wilson)
- “Good Horses” featuring Miranda Lambert (Wilson, Lambert, Luke Dick)
- “Broken Hearts Still Beat” (Wilson, Blake Pendergrass, Josh Thompson, D. Wilson)
- “Whirlwind” (Wilson, Anderson, D. Wilson)
- “Call A Cowboy” (Wilson, Anderson, D. Wilson)
- “Hang Tight Honey” (Wilson, Jason Nix, Paul Sikes, Driver Williams)
- “Bar In Baton Rouge” (Wilson, Anderson, Kasey Tyndall, Jason Nix)
- “Counting Chickens” (Wilson, Anderson, Jon Decious, Kear, D. Wilson)
- “4x4xU” (Wilson, Decious, Aaron Raitiere)
- “Ring Finger” (Wilson, Decious, Raitiere, Marti Dodson)
- “Middle of It” (Wilson, Anderson, D. Wilson)
- “Devil Don’t Go There” (Wilson, Abram Dean, Joe Fox, Lance Miller)
- “Whiskey Colored Crayon” (Wilson, Kear McCubbin)
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