I’ll always have a soft spot for Tim McGraw’s music. His general ubiquity throughout the ‘90s and 2000s definitely helped soundtrack my childhood with plenty of great singles, and while he’s never necessarily been an album-minded artist, his everyman, middle-of-the-road approach to his craft and identity does usually lend his material a lot of natural emotive heart.
With him now operating within his fourth decade as a performer, I’m not sure I see another comeback by way of his mid-2010s run, but he’s mostly transitioned and age gracefully with his material, outside of a few infamous exceptions. As far as newest album Standing Room Only is concerned, it’s definitely a step in the right direction. Really, outside of the polished, bombastic title track and the watery tones characterizing “Some Songs Change Your World,” this is mostly a 2000s-era-sounding effort with a slight neotraditional bent. “Paper Umbrellas” even manages to incorporate some crisp pedal steel and the sort of warm fiddle tone you might expect from a George Strait song of the same era.
Really, too, between a lot of playful grooves, firm, warm electric axes, and pedal steel supplementing the mix, there are solid tunes to be found here: the “Shotgun Rider”-esque “Cowboy Junkie” (stupid title aside), the bouncy “Small Town King” (clichéd small town-centered content aside), the wistful, airy “Nashville C.A./L.A. Tennessee,” and especially the darker, more ragged “Hey Whiskey.”
Granted, it also pulls from some of the more negative tropes of that era, including plenty of more polished, late-‘90s-to-early-2000s-style production that’s generally formless and edgeless. Never bad, mind you, but it’s one of those cases where a lack of negative elements doesn’t always lead to a plethora of good or notable ones. And really, the stylistic comparisons shine through even further in the writing, which either shifts between generic motivational messages (“Hold On To It,” the title track, and “Some Songs Change Your World”) to pleasant but beautifully boring love songs (“Her,” “Beautiful Hurricane”).
If there is drama, it’s usually uninteresting, like how “Remember Me Well” tries to end a relationship on a good note but also aims to be a kiss-off that doesn’t really coalesce. But again, McGraw can sell an emotive ballad extremely effectively, which is I love his more weary delivery on “Hey Whiskey” to sell the toll his alcoholism has taken on his character’s life. Familiar, sure, but it’s a strikingly well-executed song. And while “Letter From Heaven” might scan as preachy with some of its overarching metaphors of faith and life after death, it’s grounded from the very real perspective of cleaning out a loved one’s house after they’ve passed on, where the memories and old photographs and letters might elicit some hard personal reflections. It’s a really great choice for a closing track, and a personal sentiment with which I can connect.
Outside of those two songs, though, as well as maybe “Fool Me Again” for its good, soulful hook, and the starry recollections of two lovers looking to reconnect on “Nashville C.A./L.A. Tennessee” (even if I wish Lori McKenna played a bigger role there), it’s hard to find much in the way of true standouts here. Very consistently solid, but only rarely great. Even then, it’s still mostly serviceable, and it’s a mostly good sonic direction for McGraw to keep heading toward; I’ll take it.
(6/10)
- Favorite tracks: “Hey Whiskey,” “Paper Umbrellas,” “Nashville C.A./L.A. Tennessee,” “Letter From Heaven,” “Cowboy Junkie”
- Least favorite track: “Remember Me Well”
The Musical Divide 