Tomorrow, Triple Tigers recording artist Scotty McCreery will release his highly anticipated fifth studio album – Same Truck, produced by Frank Rogers, Derek Wells and Aaron Eshuis – features his current US country radio Top 5 and rising single ‘You Time.’
The perennially likeable singer-songwriter Scotty McCreery has today continued his story with his new record – Same Truck – available everywhere today through Triple Tigers, marking his fifth studio album. The record features 12 songs – 10 of which were co-written by McCreery, including the title track, ‘You Time’, and ‘Why You Gotta Be Like That’. Coming three years after his last album Seasons Change, Same Truck shows a more reflective side to McCreery’s artistry, looking at where he is in life now as a man married to the love of his life for three years, alongside celebrating his 10th year as an entertainer, since winning American Idol back in 2011. McCreery shares of the record, “Same Truck is me three years later, taking a moment to acknowledge where I am now as a 27-year-old, happily married man, sharing both what I’ve learned and where I want to go.” It’s an immensely charming record that continues McCreery’s story as an artist, without breaking from his previously established formula and sound.
‘Same Truck’ is a delightful celebration of everything we have in common, despite our differences. The title track “Same Truck,” co-written with Ashley Gorley, Zack Crowell and Taylor Phillips, landed on ET’s “New Music Releases” and found praise from MusicRow as “celebratory,” while “the ringing guitars back an anthemic lyric of unity and brotherhood…Well written and performed with elan.” The track kicks off the record with a necessarily joyful tone, before transitioning into McCreery’s current radio single – ‘You Time’ – that is an undeniable early stand-out, a jubilant track celebrating love itself, before taking a more muted approach on ‘It Matters to Her’ – a quietly loving and respectful track. ‘Every little look, every single word / Oh it matters to her.’ The track is drenched in Southern charm.
On ‘Damn Strait,’ McCreery provides a cocktail of heartbreak and nostalgia on the steel-drenched country weeper. It’s a canny tribute to George Strait, himself, honouring the icon even as he bemoans the loss of his lover. There seems to be a trend in country music for artists to reference old country songs or that of their icons (Lauren Alaina’s Ladies in the 90s, Thomas Rhett’s What’s Your Country Song), yet this is cannily and cleverly done, moving the track away from cheesy territory aided by the rich indulgence of McCreery’s signature baritone.
‘Nobody In His Right Mind Would’ve Left Her’
That was her favorite song
She sang along every time it came on
The first time we danced was to ‘Marina Del Rey’
And I fell right there and then
I didn’t want that song to end
‘Baby Blue’ was the color of her eyes
I can still see them in my mind
Probably will for the rest of my life.’
McCreery is at his best when he is digging into these Southern country story-telling roots. So, on ‘The Waiter,’ McCreery continues down his nostalgic road as he offers a heart-wrenching story about love continuing even after death. This is a song dug up from the root of country music, as he narrates a story about a man remaining at the same table he first met his wife on their first date, getting lost in memories of their love story, continuing the conversation with her even after she is gone. ‘Everybody says he’s crazy / That old man he’s lost his mind / But he ain’t missed a date with her 1959 / Sometimes he laughs, sometimes he cries… He ain’t talking to himself, he’s talking to heaven.’ It’s an intriguing song that stands out lyrically from the rest of the record, hinted at again on the final track on the record ‘How Ya Doin’ Up There’ that offers an immensely sentimental and emotional look at love after loss again.
McCreery knows his way around a commercially appealing songs, nowhere more so on his songs that celebrate his wife – ‘Why You Gotta Be Like That’ offers McCreery at his most swaggeringly seductive. ‘Baby, why you gotta wear them jeans? / Hair down and a white tank top / Baby, why you gotta be so mean? / Looking so good, I can’t stop / My hands from touchin’ your body.’ Similarly on ‘That Kind of Fire,’ McCreery sings about the physical connection and spark. No doubt these tracks will be phenomenal parts of the live piece, yet lyrically they do not stand out in the same way as ‘The Waiter.’
On Same Truck, McCreery does not break the mould from his previous releases but instead creates a strong, yet familiar body of work that underlines where he is at in his life right now. In order to accelerate past his current point, no doubt McCreery needs to evolve in order to stay current as artists like Carly Pearce have done – looking to the past, but evolving for the current context. No doubt, this record – like his previous releases – will be lapped up by his legions of fans and have commercial success, but the magic of the record is imbued on the quieter moments where McCreery digs his heels into his Southern story-telling country roots.
