Heaven help me figure out which Brantley Gilbert is the real Brantley Gilbert so that I can gather an angry mob to push him in whichever direction he feels is his musical identity. Until he drops the facade of his other persona and either establishes himself as a truly talented artist or just another party-anthem oxygen thief, I can't take this dude seriously. And this is coming from a person who was once a Brantley Gilbert supporter, back when he sang properly and released more substantial music than drivel, but those days appear to be long gone thanks to his most recent single, "The Weekend."
Don't get me wrong--I see things like Brantley Gilbert working with Wounded Warrior Project and other side projects for good causes, so I acknowledge that he doesn't seem like a bad dude by any means, but his mainstream singles are so contradictory of who he seems to be that I find it frustrating that I have to tolerate party-hardy Brantley Gilbert in order to hear his more substantial music. All things considered, I wouldn't call this single review a personal attack, but more of a plea to a talented artist to drop the shtick and just be himself.
Country radio Brantley Gilbert is that try-hard guy at every party who nobody really wants to be there, but he won't go home, continues to make as much noise as possible, routinely annoying everybody until he realizes he's the last person left and heads home in his perpetual loneliness. Album cut Brantley Gilbert has a soft and sensitive side and a real penchant for writing substantial music. Is there still a little rough edge to him? Of course, but the quality of music between one and the other is miles apart, and at this point I want him to just pick one and run.
You can guess which side of the fence "The Weekend" lands on.
What we have here is three minutes and some odd seconds of Gilbert's cookie-monster growl-vocals and a basic rock/hip hop arrangement with a banjo layered over the top so some idiotic critic can say, "hey look! It's still country! There's a banjo." Well, unfortunately for Gilbert, not every critic overlooks the fact that, while country music evolves, it doesn't evolve into something that doesn't even remotely resemble what it originally was. Genres of music simply do not become other genres of music through their evolutionary process. For a piece of music to legitimately fit into a specified genre, it has to have elements that represent what that genre is, and "The Weekend" is about as country as a parking meter. Lyrically, it's banal and irritating, filled with over-used cliches. The arrangement is like listening to two wrecked cars with still-working radios blaring at full volume.
And might I add that I find it egregious for an artist who claims to have gotten sober to continue to promote binge-drinking. Hey, it's perfectly okay to sing about having a good time, but to actively promote a real problem in America while claiming to have beaten the sauce himself is completely irresponsible and undoubtedly stupid.
If you consider yourself a fan of real country music, "The Weekend" will get your blood boiling and turn your Brantley Gilbert tolerance all the way down to zero. 0/10
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