Highway Desperado

Never far from the top reaches of Billboards Country Airplay charts, Jason Aldean nevertheless didnt garner much attention for his latter-day slow-burning country until "Try That in a Small Town" became a controversial sensation in the summer of 2023. Accompanied by a music video shot at a Tennessee courthouse that had been the location for lynchings and race riots, "Try That in a Small Town" became a cultural lightning rod, earning scorn from progressive country music fans and being embraced by conservative audiences that helped it become the singers first-ever chart-topper on the pop charts. All its success was based on how the single and video deliberately pushed cultural buttons; strip those away, and "Try That in a Small Town" is just another in a long line of crawling, glowering, arena-country from Aldean. Highway Desperado, the singles parent album, offers more of the same. The midtempo "Tough Crowd" attempts to get listeners prepped for a party, the midtempo "Let Your Boys Be Country" flips the old Waylon & Willie suggestion on its head, the midtempo "Whiskey Drink" carries a modicum of regret, and the midtempo "Im Over You" soothes a broken heart with a pop pulse. Elsewhere, Aldean co-writes for the first time in 14 years, bearing credits on the slow-moving "Hungover in a Hotel," the mildly insistent "Breakup Breakdown," and the dusty open-road anthem "Highway Desperado." That these three numbers find subtle but notable variations on Aldeans familiar formula could be telling or it could be deliberate: its enough to give Highway Desperado a fuller sound than either Macon or Georgia, even if thats hardly enough to erase the bitter taste of "Try That in a Small Town." ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine