UK fan favourite, Lainey Wilson is set to release her debut album – Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’ – tomorrow, through BMG/BBR Music Group, with a physical CD/vinyl release to follow on April 16th. Here, we review the record and make our standout picks. Pre-save the record here ahead of its release.
Fiesty and fierce singer-songwriter Lainey Wilson is due to release her debut record Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’ tomorrow through BMG/BBR Music Group, including her mammoth radio single ‘Things A Man Oughta Know.’ Wilson is a prolific songwriter and the record shows the depth of her range – from thoughtfully honest ballads to rip-roaring and exuberantly no-nonsense tracks. With Jay Joyce at the helm, the production of the record is as flawless as is to be expected, allowing Wilson to showcase her strengths and demonstrate why she has been positioned as a major new name to watch in the past year.
As Lainey told us in an interview this week, the title track ‘Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’ acted as the central point of the record, choosing songs that stood up to that idea. So the record opens with Wilson’s latest single, ‘Neon Diamonds,’ and her signature Lousiana twang, in a refreshingly honest take on marriage – that she wants it someday but for now she’s content with having fun. ‘I ain’t one for champagne and them fancy crystal stem glasses / ‘Fore I settle down, I’ll probably have to kick some bad habits / ‘Til last call do us part / We ain’t gotta get married to pretend we are.’ If you listen closely, you’ll hear Lainey’s own mama on the gang vocal here, it’s a mammoth track, with heavy overlaid guitar production to kick off the record in style. Lainey’s identity as a free spirit is carried through on later tracks, including ‘Rolling Stone.’ This is a stand-out moment on the record about living life untethered and free-spirited, it’s honest and vulnerable. ‘Think you’re the one that’s gonna turn me around / Give me a ring and settle me down / Got a little old on me, don’t get me wrong / But, baby, my heart runs wild and free / You gotta know ‘fore you fall for me / Like a feather in the wind, I could be gone / You don’t give a rock to a rolling stone.’ It’s a quietly pensive track that is more blues-y and introspective, allowing Wilson’s vocal to soar.
This independent, free-wheeling spirit is carried through on the blustery, drinking songs on the record that are more intelligent than that definition allows. So, on simmering track ‘Sunday Best,’ she sings about nursing a hangover in church and on the boisterous track ‘Straight Up Sideways,’ Wilson sings about there being many ways to get drunk. ‘A-tip ’em back ’til you can’t walk / Cut loose like a chainsaw / Plastered like a drywall / Hammered like an old bent nail …There’s more than one way /To get straight up sideways.’ It’s loud, proud and wildly fun, as is later track ‘Pipe’ – the first unreleased track on the record, that offers a heavy-hitting rock, swaggering track about telling it like it is and keeping things real. ‘Can’t find a barstool, just find a porch / Hell’s whiskey cheaper at the liquor store / When life gets you down, go buy a dog, in the end you’ll be better off.’ It’s another celebration of humble roots, as much as it is a drinking son.
Wilson is, simply put, one of the most humble and likeable artists in country music, and this humility is carried through into her songwriting. So, ‘Things A Man Oughta Know’ takes the album in a different direction. The track – Lainey’s first radio single – is a more pensive, meandering track where Wilson muses on the ways a man ought to treat a woman. ‘How to know when it’s love, how to stay when it’s tough, how to know you’re messing up a good thing.’ To its core, it’s about being a good person, someone who Dolly would be proud of, as she sings on ‘WWDD’ that we should all really live a little more like Dolly. This track is as joyful as the artist herself, ‘Big heart, big smile, big voice on the radio dial / Like a country music modern day apostle, yeah I leaned in like it was gospel.’
As Dolly did, Lainey too celebrates her roots throughout her music. ‘Small Town, Girl’ is a simmering rock track about how quickly rumours spread in a small town. ‘Like the roots running through southern ground / Word gets out when you get around / If I was you, I’d be on the lookout / ‘Cause it’s a small town.’ On ‘LA,’ Wilson celebrates her Louisianan roots. ‘LA’ was the stand-out track on Wilson’s 2019 EP Redneck Hollywood and continues to be a flawless standout track, rightful of a place further up the track listing. It is an exuberant, loud and proud track celebrating Lainey’s pride in her Louisianan roots. ‘When you say LA, I think Louisiana / Lower Alabama, stars up in the sky / And I ain’t been to California / Way too far from Georgia / But one day I might.’ It’s a catchy track that brims with joy and a celebration of her roots. The following track, ‘Dirty Looks,’ is the closest thing to a love song that you’ll get to on the record, a celebration of real, hard-working ‘dirty’ men. ‘Gettin’ dirty looks from people at the bar / Gettin’ dirty looks like, “Don’t you know where you are?” / Gettin’ dirty looks like everybody’s got somethin’ to tell us.’
Wilson has held two of her quieter, more poignant and introspective tracks back for the record’s release – ‘Keeping Bars in Business’ and the title track. Both are stunning moments on the record that showcase the depth of Wilson as a songwriter and artist. The first showcases a more tender side to Lainey’s vocal in the track about drinking sorrows away ‘Someone’s crying someone’s kissing, someone’s smiling someone’s bitching, someone’s celebrating while someone’s heart is breaking / If you’re on cloud 9, or you’ve been knocked down, there’s a neon light on the edge of town.’ ‘Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’ by contrast shows Lainey’s core as a songwriter – one who will say it like it is. ‘I can’t lie to you, cos I can’t lie to me / So don’t ask if you don’t want total honesty / I’ve been driving, I’ve been crying / But I swear I ain’t been drinking / Even I can’t believe I’m sayin what I’m thinkin.’ The track is one of the strongest vocal moments on the record and a manifesto for Wilson as an artist and human.
On Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’, Lainey Wilson stakes herself out as a songwriter and artist with a raw and unique talent. Though the record may suffer without a few stand-out singles, it is a tremendous body of work that shows off both the range of Wilson’s songwriting depth and her artistry. If this is her debut, the country music industry had better watch their backs because Wilson is on the cusp of something huge, and it couldn’t happen to a more generous or humble artist.
Editor’s Picks
Keeping Bars in Business
Rolling Stone
Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’
