An interesting thing has happened on Thomas Rhett’s path to country music stardom. He didn’t immediately break-out. Still just 23, Thomas Rhett proved that the third time’s the charm with “It Goes Like This” hitting the #1 spot on the charts and selling a million tracks (or soon to be at the time of this album review’s writing). The song became the title track for Thomas Rhett’s debut album. The album still features the first two singles (both Top 20 hits) with “Something To Do With My Hands” and “Beer With Jesus.” The former was released in 2011 while the latter was a single in 2012 and found the singer gaining some critical acclaim but getting brushback from conservative markets who said ‘how dare you’ while completely missing the point of the message in the song. Half of the album was produced by Jay Joyce while Luke Laird and Michael Knox both handled production duties on the other six songs (3 each).
Laird’s productions are “Get Me Some Of That,” “Call Me Up,” and “Sorry For Partyin’” and these tunes all showcase the youthful hook-filled side of Thomas Rhett’s music. Each of them could be radio hits with “Get Me Some Of That” and “Call Me Up” showing off Thomas Rhett’s strong voice in places while allowing the groove to shine in other places. “Sorry For Partyin’” is a great, blues-filled pre-emptive ‘sorry letter’ sent out to neighbors and other folks for the stuff that is about/has gone down. It’s perhaps the most clever song on the record and while I think it’d be a huge radio hit and has potential for being a defining moment at a concert and to be recorded by many people down the line, I don’t know if it’ll ever be sent to radio.
The Michael Knox-produced tracks include the title track and it’s the first time Knox has had one of his artists not named Jason Aldean hit #1 with a song he produced. Listening to “It Goes Like This,” it’s easy to see why. It’s rock-filled, hooky groove backs up Thomas Rhett’s sturdy vocals while “In A Minute” and “Take You Home” both feel like radio-ready hits, particularly “In A Minute” a song Thomas Rhett co-wrote with his dad and Ashley Gorley. It’s like “It Goes Like This” in how it it is a hit and like other stuff on the radio but doesn’t sound like a ‘me too’ record, which is something that “Take You Home” might have a bit too much of (it’s the only song on the record to not be written by either Thomas Rhett or Rhett Akins).
Other standouts from the rest of the record include “Front Porch Junkies,” a Beck-like kind of spoken-verse song. It is another one which could be a big hit on radio but who knows if they’re ready to have such a kind of ‘polarizing’ song released to radio after the experience Thomas Rhett had with “Beer With Jesus.” For six songs produced by Jay Joyce (who is always inventive and creative with his production techniques, only “All-American Middle Class White Boy” feels like a Jay Joyce produced song. It’s musically interesting likely makes for an interesting radio track.
There’s plenty on It Goes Like This to suggest that Thomas Rhett has the talent to be a top-line star but it’ll just be if radio’s ready to allow him to be the star his own father was destined to be (and eventually became as a songwriter of multiple hits). Either way, Thomas Rhett’s got himself a very good, musically diverse debut album, an album which should find some sort of an audience.
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