Album Review: Cody Johnson - “Human: The Double Album”

For his second Warner Music Nashville album, Cody Johnson doubles down (literally) on the kinds of songs that makes him unique. A Traditionalist in an anything goes country music landscape. Check our review here!

It’s rare to find an album track you can play on repeat – probably for the rest of your life. “Til You Can’t,” from Cody Johnson’s Human: The Double Album, is one of those rare treats, though. Country music is especially good at focusing on what really matters, which this song accomplishes with its strong emotional heartstring pull. But that’s not all, as the TV pitch men used to say. There’s more. So much more.

Johnson didn’t write the most of this album, but one he did help compose, “Known for Loving You,” which has one of those charging, positive motion grooves that just grabs you and propels you forward joyfully. Yes, Johnson’s song does compare his relationship to Johnny and June, like most other country songs (aren’t there any other memorable country couple love stories to reference?), but that doesn’t spoil an otherwise fantastic tune. “God Bless the Boy” is a sweet, father’s song, while Johnson kicks out the country jam with Vince Gill’s “Son of a Ramblin’ Man.”

At eighteen tracks long, this release is probably a little too long. Nevertheless, all its goodness makes it worthwhile. Also, the first half (Part 1) is better than the second half. A single album, of just the best stuff, would have sufficed.

Cody Johnson has a traditionalist’s heart, with a knack for making his country-music-love palatable for contemporary country ears. Human: The Double Album is a whole lot of Cody Johnson, and much of it is top of the line stuff.

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