Single Review: Jason Aldean's "A Little More Summertime"

My dislike for Jason Aldean is pretty evident to anybody who pays attention to my stance on mainstream country music. No major artist has put forth more effort to erode the stylistic parameters of a long and storied genre, releasing garbage songs like the atrocious "Burnin' it Down" and the earache known as "1994." It's one thing to record songs that fans of substance don't like; it's completely different to release singles that aren't good songs in any context, and Jason Aldean found a way to do that with those two atrocities from his last two studio albums. Were there some decent to good songs released around those singles? Sure, but mediocrity doesn't make such transgressions disappear. Jason Aldean has a lot of work to do in order to rebuild his reputation for traditional country fans.

I say "rebuild" because Jason Aldean released 3 really good albums at the beginning of his career, and a fourth that was mostly good in My Kinda Party, but that's where his penchant for distorted guitar took over, and where his leanings toward hip hop came full circle with his cover of "Dirt Road Anthem." Even that song wasn't horribly done, leaning on steel guitar pretty heavily, and with Aldean choosing to have the verses act as monologues as opposed to actually rapping them like Colt Ford does on the original. It was an interesting single at the time that infuriated a lot of people. While that song may not have been terrible, it signified a drastic change in sound that would come on his next two albums. 

After two albums worth of obnoxious distorted guitar playing basic 80's arena rock riffs and horrible "experiments" that irritated more people than their chart performance would indicate, I will happily state that Aldean's second single from forthcoming album They Don't Know is something of a return to form. "A Little More Summertime" is not the most well-written song that he's ever recorded, but the scaled back production and forlorn lyrics call to mind his first three albums. There is some leftover distorted guitar during the chorus, but it's not the kind that overwhelms the vocals like some of his recent singles. Aldean still has some work to do in regard to recapturing his original sound, but "A Little More Summertime" is definitely a good start.

Lyrically, it's a story we've heard before. The narrator meets a girl during the summertime in a small community only to have her leave when the fall comes back around. I enjoyed the way that Jerry Flowers, Tony Martin, and Wendell Mobley constructed the song, with short verses that get to the point and a longer chorus that carries the mood with ease. "A Little More Summertime" fits Aldean's voice very well.

What has me most excited about this song is that I think it's the first great single that Jason Aldean has released since "Fly Over States" came out four and a half years ago. 4.5 damn years, if you can believe it. There were tolerable singles from both Night Train and Old Boots, New Dirt, but the only one that even came close to being great was "Tonight Looks Good on You."

I'm probably getting my hopes up over nothing, and am fully prepared for They Don't Know to disappoint me. And good lord, why do these artists keep picking such stupid album titles? I mean, They Don't Know isn't Kinda Don't Care bad, but it's still a really stupid title. At the very least, "A Little More Summertime" is a great single that gives me hope that the album might not be terrible. 7/10

Up Next: Dolly Parton's Pure & Simple