It was inevitable — the country music industry is beginning to
\ngroom successors to the genre’s throne, presently held by Garth
\nBrooks.<\/p>\n
A whole new generation of artists who have been weaned on the
\nmusic that Brooks has produced for almost a decade are now making
\ntheir voices heard — in the hopes of eventually unseating their
\nmentor.<\/p>\n
Well, you can add teenager Winston Slade’s name to that list —
\nhis debut album
\nFocus<\/i> shows that he’s learned his lessons well without
\nbecoming a carbon copy of Brooks… but he’s not quite there
\nyet.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, I’m not one of the biggest country music fans in the
\nworld — the total number of country albums in the Pierce Archives
\n(one month to the Grammies) is definitely not above 100. But when
\nSlade focuses (no pun intended) on choosing good songs and giving
\neach one his best effort, the album takes off.<\/p>\n
There are a few minor mistakes along the way. “The English
\nLanguage” features a chorus that is just annoying, and the song
\nnever seems to get off the ground. And while I won’t knock anyone
\nfor covering rockabilly legend Gene Vincent, this version of
\n“Be-Bop-A-Lula” is — perish the thought! — a little too
\nrock-oriented for me. Slade’s vocal delivery on this one, at least
\nuntil the final chorus — is too laid-back.<\/p>\n
But for the few weak moments on
\nFocus<\/i>, the strengths quickly wipe them from memory. “When
\nI’m Gone” is a lovely ballad that will fail to move only the
\nhardest heart, while the title track is a positive number that one
\nmight not expect to hear in country music; I could easily see this
\none fitting in on the radio. Even a throwaway subject like that of
\n“Kissing Coach” wins the listener over on the strength of the
\nperformances and vocals.<\/p>\n
And it’s not that
\nFocus<\/i> is a feel-good country album — not with songs like
\n“Every Time You Go Outside I Hope It Rains,” a surprisingly good
\nsong. But for the most part, the general vibe on this one isn’t a
\nnegative one — and, in a sense, this is a refreshing change of
\npace.<\/p>\n
The one disappointment I can find is that Slade is constantly
\nrelying on outside material; not one of these songs features a
\nwriting credit for Slade. I would like to see what kind of writing
\ntalents Slade has — he’s almost got the performance thing down
\npat.<\/p>\n
\nFocus<\/i> is a powerfully strong debut album that brings into
\nthe spotlight quite possibly the next household country name. With
\nanother coat or two of paint — and a lot of lucky breaks — Slade
\nwill quickly get his chance, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing
\nthis happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5935],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-35888","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-winston-slade","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35888"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35888"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}