American duo Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard’s fourth album kicks off with a skit and a song that both reject any suggestion that the pair are not really country. “You can say I’m a redneck, you can say you don’t like my truck,” they sing, “but you can’t say I’m not country.” It’s an unusually defensive way of beginning what will almost certainly be another massive-selling record, but perhaps such accusations have got under their skin. They’re leading lights of so-called “bro country”, a hugely successful yet maligned sub-genre in which songs about partying, drinking and romancing, with elements of rock and hip-hop production, are sung by brawny, gym-honed, tattooed men in trucks. Bro country acts have been spoofed by Maddie Marlow and Tae Dye and FGL themselves dubbed it “douchebag music”, which didn’t stop the duo’s Nelly-remixed Cruise becoming the biggest-selling digital country single ever.
Can’t Say I Ain’t Country is full of bro country tropes. Opening skit Tyler Got Him a Tesla teases Hubbard over his choice of an expensive electric truck. Mentions of Instagram and playlists pepper the lyrics and the songs heave at the dividing line between country and modern, radio-friendly pop.
Hooks and machine-polished harmonies abound, with Hank Williams hollers, strummed mandolins and cliched but anthemic choruses. For all the shopping-mall feel of their songs, they can be industrially catchy. Speed of Love rollicks along accordingly and it’s particularly – infuriatingly – hard to forget Simple’s (gulp) whistled hook.
If only their lyrics weren’t so cringey. “I’m looking at that fine little dress … now I just want to talk you out of it,” they leer. They team up with Jason Derulo for a ham-fisted attempt to be down with the sisterhood on Women (“the reason we’re living”) and People Are Different makes a well-meaning but infantile plea for unity (“smile at a stranger, love thy neighbour”, ye gods). They’re much more comfortable with Y’all Boys’ unashamed homage to home-made alcohol, southern drawlin’, huntin’ and the inevitable “pretty girl”, but there are plenty of reasons to just say no to bro.
