Brett Eldredge - “Lose My Mind”

2015 was the year I got over my bias against country music. I have to attribute a huge amount of that to Spectrum Pulse, as his advocacy for even some of the bro country artists of the time made me more willing to hear these songs as more than just “trucks, girls, and beer”. 2015 was a particularly weird time for country music, stuck in a limbo where the bro country bubble burst, but no one was coming in to replace it so they just kept going. It wouldn’t be until Chris Stapleton started gaining massive attention thanks to his CMA’s performance with Justin Timberlake (see above) when we’d see the first signs of a shifting ecosystem away from rap rock slop into more traditional sounds. But in that time, there were a handful of artists making their own thing that got a free pass on radio because what the hell else were they gonna play? The previously mentioned doo-wop, funk country pop Frankenstein’s monster of “Crash and Burn”, Chris Janson’s half-ironic ode to fishing on “Buy Me A Boat”, Sam Hunt’s miserable blend of Drake-type R&B and pop country through songs like “Take Your Time”, anyone else remember “Smoke” by A Thousand Horses? Even LittleBigTown got a huge hit off by… I guess queerbaiting??? on “Girl Crush”. 

But one of my favorites was a little sleeper hit by the name of “Lose My Mind” by Brett Eldredge. Eldredge is one of those Nashville guys that most people would completely overlook despite his talents. He doesn’t have any year-end hits, he’s rarely the first guy you think of when you think of mid-2010s country, I don’t even know if the average person who doesn’t actively listen to country radio would even know he exists. But I do, because I love this guy. He has a terrific baritone voice that’s incredibly distinct and easy to spot, even among a baritone-heavy Nashville rotation. He’s also a totally earnest goofball in his music, willing to be silly and dorky in a way that’s so charming and endearing. A lot of bro country guys at the time were very frat boy coded and tried to go for “hey girl” type sexiness. By contrast, Brett Eldredge is more of a Nashville himbo. 

I caught all this immediately when listening to “Lose My Mind”, the lead single to his album Illinois. It’s a fairly simple song about being head over heels for a girl so hot she literally makes you crazy. It’s full of exaggerated metaphors and insane asylum imagery, which I guess you can call kinda problematic, but it’s done so cartoonishly that it’s hard to actually take any offense to it. Especially since most of it is just him being a horndog to the point of delusion. And I think he makes this a lot of fun! This is where that Eldredge charm comes into play, as his drawl strikes a great balance of confident flirting and smitten infatuation. He’s the one making moves on this girl, but really, it feels more like he’s playing right into her hands. The fun rollick of the production, complete with wonky guitars and a catchy acoustic-driven hook makes you feel like you’re also getting wrapped up in this woman’s charms and into a straightjacket. It’s not a particularly special song on its own, I don’t even think it’s Eldrege’s best song (that would be “Sunday Drive”, which is also one of the best songs of this current decade so far). But it was a gateway into hearing more pop country in this lane, which eventually led to diving even deeper into country music. Now it’s one of my favorite genres, and the country scene is brighter than ever… outside of Nashville at least. Seeing how dull and predictable country radio has become kinda makes me yearn for the eccentric oddities of 2015’s country radio hits. Not all of them were good, but they were at least interesting. Maybe some day another song will appear on Nashville radio that draws me in as much as “Lose My Mind” did.

Brothers Osborne - “Stay A Little Longer”

“Stay A Little Longer” by Brothers Osborne picked up additional context with time. It was the first and biggest hit the band ever had, peaking at a modest #46 on the Hot 100 and a Top 5 finish in the Hot Country Charts. It never went much farther, but it was a miracle that it managed to get that far anyway. A blues-rock type country song where the stomp of the percussion grounds the intricate guitar-work as TJ Osborne’s delicious baritone sings about a casual relationship that always ends in sex, but never goes farther despite TJ’s hidden feelings. This was already a great song with a fantastic hook, but it elevates itself even further when the last two minutes of the song is dedicated to a ripping guitar solo from John Osborne. The radio was too cowardly to play the whole thing (even the video cuts it off early), but I always let that guitar solo play all the way through because it kicked ASS.

This was enough for me to stay tuned into Brothers Osborne, who would within the next year release their great debut album Pawn Shop. Hosting even more great songs like the yearning for a past summer romance in “21 Summer”, the goofy down and dirty title track, and of course “It Ain’t My Fault”, a country rock banger that has since become one of my most listened to songs of all time. I can never get enough of that nasty bassline and TJ’s badass posturing as he finds himself closer and closer to landing in jail for simply having a damn good time. Great video to go along with it too, set to some robbers stealing from Brothers Osborne’s pawn shop and being chased down by the cops. Coincidentally, all of them are wearing masks of presidents. If you watched Brothers Osborne’s videos, you’d find that a surprising amount of them are very unambiguous about where they stand. The only robber who gets caught in the “It Ain’t My Fault” video is the one wearing a Trump mask after he fails to climb a wall. Hell, even the video for “Stay A Little Longer” prominently features queer couples. 

It wouldn’t be until six years later where TJ Osborne would come out as gay. The news story broke out on the same day as my birthday, funny enough! Learning that a band I’d been a longtime fan of whose art I loved came from a queer man was already an exciting development for me, but it meant that the next time I listened to “Stay A Little Longer”, it sounded a little different to me. Without knowing that TJ is gay, “Stay A Little Longer” is about a partner that TJ keeps coming back to so he can quell his loneliness, despite growing feelings for them as soon as they leave. Which is a strong concept all in its own, but adding queerness to the equation makes it hit even harder for me these days. Perhaps the reason TJ and this partner can’t take that next step is because, for one or the other, it can’t be something more public. Country music to this day still struggles with accepting queerness and stands strong on its commitment to heteronormativity. There’s a reason why it took six years for TJ to be honest about his relationships and sexuality. The yearning for this partner to stay a little longer is now a familiar feeling for gay men and other queer folks who have to keep hookups and relationships on the down low, lest they derail one’s life by revealing their secrets to everyone. You don’t want to experience coming out like Khalid did last year, essentially forced out of the closet by a spiteful partner. It gives a song I already loved ten years ago even more pathos for me as a queer person. It’s not lost on me that Brothers Osborne hasn’t seen the same success since TJ’s coming out. They’ve seen some critical acclaim, even won a Grammy for a song explicitly about TJ’s queerness (“Younger Me”, one of my favorite songs of that year), but radio hasn’t given a shit about them in a while and their label hasn’t given them any promo. I hope the boys keep trucking on, though. They’re some of the brightest stars in the industry and they deserve more love and support than they get.

Keith Urban - “Break On Me”

I’m just going to be upfront here- “Break On Me” isn’t that good. It’s by far the least popular of Ripcord’s five singles, musically it’s not that interesting, and it’s a well worn concept in music. Plenty of songs out there are about offering a shoulder to cry on when things are tough. This song was always bound to be forgotten, even by people who may have loved it at the time. I am, of course, referring to myself. Because if you asked me what I thought of this song back in 2015, I would tell you this was my rock through one of the hardest years of my life. 

I’m in such a weird spot as someone who's been writing for a decade, but is still relatively young and only kind of within music writing scenes. Over the years, music nerdom has always had a set starter pack of the music considered essential listening and life changers. The stereotypical /mu/ topsters, or the albums everyone agrees are masterpieces. But I never really followed that path. I was interested in mainstream pop music. I wanted to know more about the songs that played on my radio or the songs that came up during my Apple Radio sessions. I wasn’t against trying any of the nerd stuff, but at least during this period, I was excited about current popular music, with some miscellaneous curiosities mixed in. To this day I have never heard a Radiohead album. I haven’t done a deep dive into The Beatles’ discography. I remember several years ago sharing my first topster and someone commented that the whole thing was almost entirely 2010s albums and like. Well, yeah. That’s the music that grew up with me. I got into music through Bruno Mars, Weird Al Yankovich, Ed Sheeran, Katy Perry. I wish I could tell you that at 16 I was deeply moved by In Rainbows or that Abbey Road changed my life, but that wouldn’t be true. At 16, I was crying to “Break On Me” by Keith Urban. 

It’s ultimately because of circumstance that this song hit me pretty hard. I was working my first two jobs (started out in one, transferred to another after a month), coming home physically exhausted almost every night. I started my junior year still wrought with heartbreak and desperately trying not to be weird around my crush (I was failing). A couple friendships wavered around this time too. Also a traumatic experience relating to a cultish retreat I went on that I’m only now starting to really process how fucked up it all was (if you went to Catholic school you know what I’m talking about. Watch “Yes God Yes”, it’s free on Tubi!). I only bring this up because it’s pretty crucial to understanding why a song like “Break On Me” would have resonated so much at the time. A gentle song that tells you it’s okay to let go of all those emotions and just let yourself fall apart. No one’s insisting that things are gonna be okay, no one’s trying to get you to be more optimistic, it’s just permission to be vulnerable and let it all out. Funny enough, around that time, I grew closer to people who allowed me to do exactly that. I’m not in contact with a lot of them, but I still remember their kindness and empathy. That’s how I view the song too. I’ve heard way better songs, and I pretty much never go back to it. But I appreciate the catharsis it gave me in the moment. It’s a part of me regardless of whether I think its quality holds up.

Tomorrow: Kendrick Lamar - “Mortal Man”, Toby Fox - “Undertale”, and Eric Church - “Record Year”