We review the latest collection of songs from Renee Blair – The Ones To Slow Dance To – and reveal our stand out track.
One of CMT’s next women of country class of 2020 (alongside the likes of Gabby Barret and Hailey Whitters), Renee Blair, introduced her debut EP ‘The Ones To Slow Dance To’ at the break of spring this year. Brimful of heart warming and heart breaking tunes, Blair exhibits true potential in the new world of country meets hip hop.
‘The Ones To Slow Dance To’ is the first chapter off of my album that will be out later this year called The Ones.’ It’ll be filled with everything from ballads to beach songs. I wanted to kick off this album by releasing the ballads first. Each song in this group is different from the other and tells it own unique story.’ Blair revealed while talking to American Songwriter in March.
Blair’s songwriter boyfriend, Jordan Schmidt, co wrote and co produced the debut works, and so, it’s only fitting that the three works are full of intricate detail and texture.
‘Here I Am’ is the first ballad on the project. The intense ballad showcases a strength that is probably rooted from Blair working in her father’s Watusi cattle farm in rural Missouri before moving to Nashville as a teen. The slick, easy sound you pick up on in the track is probably through the influence of St Louis native Nelly. When taking to The Boot, Blair admitted that ‘I honestly have listened to his first few albums thousands of times…when I was in high school I was obsessed with Nelly and Tim McGraw’s duet ‘Over and Over’. [It was] the first time I saw the country and hip hop genre fuse together and I was truly inspired by the success of it.’
Lending our ear to the production side of things, note the spacious slide guitar and the fast triple hi-hats (a critical requirement of modern hip hop music), which adds a sense of old town road swag and audacious attitude for a song that addresses amatory relapse. The bouncing banjo and tidal crashes from the drum kit cymbals during the chorus mimic the rise and fall in Blair’s story as she sings ‘no I wouldn’t get caught drinking with ya, no way in hell think I’m leaving right ya, but here I am’. A soul stirring solo on the guitar during the bridge is energetic enough to showcase the angst of an on-again, off-again relationship, but is also brief enough to build back up to the last bold chorus where Blair’s vocals take centre stage
The second track is entitled ‘Handsome’ and is golden hour tinted throughout its instrumentation and Norah-Jones soul organ. Blair’s vocals ring out like a hazy Sunday, making it the perfect song to slow dance to in your living room (especially during lockdown). The bright kid compliments the ‘handsome’ storyline, and the almost giddy time in Blair’s message is such a contrast to ‘Here I Am’ , which helps to add a deeper level of dimension to a frugal three track E.P.
The third and final track is ‘Get The Girl.’ While the light, bluegrass feel gives listeners a breath of fresh air and a sense of delicacy as Blair sings ‘If you wanna get the girl, then you gotta be the man,’ a quality that the subject matters of the previous two tracks are too heavy to achieve. The song does, unfortunately, fall into a state of being generic. Being too closely related to the likes of Kelsea Ballerini’s ‘Love me like a girl’ and even Chris Bandi’s ‘Man Enough Now.’ Production-wise the song presents Blair as a chameleon across all country fused genres, however, lyrically it does not meet the same calibre of Blair’s unique 2019 single ‘Summadat’.
If Blair’s debut album delivers as well as her colourful ability to tell stories, her album will be definitely be bound for success and popular among the country-hip hop climate. This album, just a taster of what to come, is powerful but it is to be hoped that she picks it up for the follow-up upbeat tracks.
Editor’s Pick
Here I Am
