Blind Review Number One: Rearview Town

I love music. I still use CD’s for two reasons: 1. I love the feeling of popping in a new CD into the car stereo. 2. I possibly hate myself.

To really judge a CD, you have to listen to it a few times through. The first listen is like a first date, you’re getting a feel for it. A certain song may catch your attention, just like a certain trait may catch your attention.

The second listen is more intimate. You know what to expect tonally, and can start getting more specific in what you listen for.

The third listen may just be the best listen. Knowing what to expect you can fully pick up on every beat change, word play, and finally half-sing-along to at least two songs.

After listening three or more times, you can judge an album pretty fairly. That being said, I am going to review an album after listening ZERO times. This is based completely on assumption (Aldean never said nor created these things...I think). As I am mostly in the loop with rap and R&B, I decided to go out of my comfort zone.

Today I am blindly reviewing Rearview Town by Jason Aldean.

Rearview Town is an ambitious project by Aldean. Throughout the album he talks about leaving his hometown of (google search) Macon, Georgia. This is made clear in the opening song Dirt to Dust. In DTD, Aldean talks about how he went from dirt, growing up on a farm, to dust, now living in an old haunted mansion. Tonally, he sets the mood immediately with his trademark JAAAAAAASON Aldeaaaan. From that he goes into a half inspiring/half loathing two and a half minutes of classic Aldean.

After 2016’s They Don’t Know flopped because of Aldean’s insistence on repeating the phrase “Whatchu know about that?” throughout the album, he makes a bold move by mentioning the album title throughout Rearview Town. For instance, in Set it Off  he sings the line: "I got drunk off a half an ounce/ sweet old Jack in this Rearview Town." Just to come back two lines later with: "I kicked a lizard in a wedding gown/ just another day in this Rearview Town." The only song where the phrase Rearview Town is not mentioned is the song Rearview Town. 

Getting Warmed Up will be the lasting hit from this album. In it, Aldean weaves crafty wordplay and a heart-turning hook by Anderson Paak:“Put fuel on the wick/ and it’s sparking up/ got my hand on my d***/ cause I don’t give a F***”. This is likely Aldean taking on economic inequality in suburban Macon, Georgia without directly saying so.

The back-half of the album is hit or miss. Aldean starts experimenting with sounds towards the end. In I’ll Wait for You there is an eerily quiet guitar plucking strings every now and then, with Aldean whispering “I’m waiting” every so often. Don’t listen to that one if you’ve just broken up with someone who won’t stop following you in nearly empty parking lots.

Following the creepy Ill Wait for You is the unabashedly pornographic Ride All Night. I can’t write about this song without including some disturbing lyrics so I’ll take a pass.

The final song of an album is arguably the most important. It determines what taste is left in the listener’s ears. Aldean’s High Noon Neon is a complete 360 from his usual style. Instead of the guitar and lines about whiskey and trucks, Aldean uses nothing but a didgeridoo, a triangle, and a rain stick. This creates a psychedelic sound that almost sounds like construction workers fixing something outside, but you’re not quite sure what they are fixing. High Noon Neon is a song to listen too when you open a box of cereal, just to discovers it’s just crumbs, and then you realize you don’t want cereal anyway.

For fans of Aldean, Rearview Town is a movie date. You get to go out with someone, but the night ends with you remembering the movie more than your date. For first time Aldean listeners, this album is like ordering eggplant parmigiana: it’s exciting because it’s new, yet it’s still just fucking eggplant.

This album constantly reminds us that we all have a town in our rear view, but it never successfully tells us where to go next. So, without listening to Rearview Town and after making a ton of assumptions, I say: You can leave Rearview Town in your rear-view mirror.  2.42 stars out of 5.5