List. Party! -K. Chesney-"Welcome To The Fishbowl"

Really like I'm a Small Town after a couple listens, but is it a single?

You can now listen to track #7, "Makes Me Wonder".

www.welcometothefishbowl.com is Kenny's official page for the album. it also has story behind the songs. "El Cerrito Place" is the yahoo song, like listed above :)

I agree with you Mr. Lumpster.....Come Over makes me cringe! The video makes me cringe too! Cannot take either one.

After first listen, it's not too shabby given I wasn't that impressed with FLARS and CO. The ones that got my attention were the Keith Gattis songs, the title track, "Sing 'Em Good My Friend", "To Get to You (55th and 3rd)", and "While He Still Knows Who I Am". I'll give this another listen some time in the future and maybe the rest will grow on me more like Hemingway's Whiskey did.

I haven't listened to a full Kenny Chesney album in a LONG, LONG, LONG time. I was curious to hear "Sing 'em Good My Friend" because I've heard some great things about it, and then just let it play. And I'm pleasantly surprised. Kenny is still far from being my favorite, but this is a pretty good album, FLARS excluded, of course. ;) I don't know that I'll buy it in the near future, but there's nothing on here that I abhor enough to *not* buy it.

I like 'COME OVER' but I could be biased since I am a huge Sam Hunt fan. The song has been on my iPod since before I knew Kenny was going to record it.

Really hope "El Cerrito Place" sees radio. He did a fantastic job with that song. Can't stop listening.

I like "El Cerrito Place" as well but prefer Charlie Robisons version. But then again, I was pretty big fan of his stuff in that period. Is he still around? I havent heard anything about him in years now.

^Yeah, I listened through the album several times in my car today (4 hour drive) and I came up with pretty much the same scenario.

My thoughts on the album: It's pretty good. Not amazing, but pretty good...maybe a B- or a B. I'm actually not a huge fan of the title track, but I do think it is radio-friendly. "Come Over" to me was above average after the first several listens but now I find it's burning on me quickly. It just feels too much like they were trying to re-create the mood of "Somewhere With You", with CO being another Shane McAnally tune. It's not bad but it's nowhere near as good as SWY and it just feels like they were trying too hard there.

"Feel Like A Rock Star" is still a guilty pleasure for me. My favorite 3 songs on the album, in order, are "Always Gonna Be You" (haunting ballad), "El Cerrito Place" (love this one), and "Sing 'Em Good My Friend". I think at least one of them could be a single, since Kenny himself and some of the reviews have made mentions of the ballads being a big part of the album, which I agree with. "I'm A Small Town" is pretty good as well and "Makes Me Wonder" sounds tailor-made for radio...it's a pretty good uptempo that's short but sweet and to the point.

"To Get To You (55th & 3rd)" is a pretty cool title but so far the song is striking me as too mushy...maybe it will grow on me. Aside from the title track, the other songs that I think I'll be skipping are "While He Still Knows Who I Am" (nice thought behind this one, but it just puts me to sleep...the other ballads have much stronger melodies and other stuff going for them) and "Time Flies". TF just seems rather annoying, actually, and unfortunately it seems like the perfect length for radio. It's an island tune but I just don't see why it had to be on the album...surely, if Kenny wanted a beachy song, they could've come up with something--anything--better than that?

One thing I noticed about the album is that not all of it seems to completely fit together which bummed me out a bit, because I'm not sure that it's any better than his last album (not saying it's worse though either). I mean, it goes from "Sing 'Em Good My Friend" to "Welcome To The Fishbowl" to "I'm A Small Town" and then "Time Flies" seems WAY out of place in between "While He Still Knows Who I Am" and "To Get To You (55th & 3rd)". Overall, I just was hoping for a little bit better of an album--but it's still pretty good, especially with tracks like "Always Gonna Be You", "El Cerrito Place", and "Sing 'Em Good My Friend" making up for some of the lesser songs. I just wish there were a few more strong songs like those, and then I'd bump it up to an A- or so.

If I could pick the singles, I'd probably pick like this:

3) Makes Me Wonder
4) El Cerrito Place
5) I’m A Small Town or Sing ‘Em Good My Friend (SEGMF if they don’t want to release both Keith Gattis songs, or if they do then they could release both of these songs if they go 6 singles deep).

And I think my favorite song (by a hair), "Always Gonna Be You", would be a great choice as well but I have a hunch that ECP or SEGMY would be higher in the pecking order when it comes to ballads as singles. "Makes Me Wonder" seems like a surefire single to me, but unfortunately I have a feeling that either the title track or "Time Flies" will wind up as a single too. If that's the case, I'd much rather have the title track.

I don't really think my order of singles is all that logical, since that would mean releasing both of the Keith Gattis written tracks and I don't really think they'll release both. "I'm A Small Town" is pretty good and probably the more radio-friendly of the two, but if they were to only pick one of the Gattis songs, I'd go with an edited version of "El Cerrito Place"...I know it's not exactly a new song but, like with "You And Tequila", Kenny is reaching back and bringing a good 'older' song to light and I think he does a great job with ECP. I also think it's a bit more of a creative risk for him to record it and would be perhaps a bit bigger of a risk to release it, but I'm pulling for it, because I actually think it could do wonders for the commercial longevity of the album if ECP was the 3rd or 4th single.

Kenny Chesney’s first release for his new Blue Chair imprint through Columbia Nashville, Welcome to the Fishbowl, will debut at #2 with an estimated 185-210k.

Hemingway's Whiskey opened similarly (184,000).

So far, on first listen, I like the album a fair bit. I think I might prefer Hemingway's Whiskey, but that one ended up one of my favourites of his.

Initially, I agree with some earlier thoughts that it's not exactly the most cohesive album, but then again that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I'm one of the ones who like "Feel Like A Rock Star" (and I still like it, to be honest). I also like "Come Over" a lot, and think that it makes a good single. As far as the next single, "Welcome To The Fishbowl" probably makes the most sense, even though it's nowhere near my favourite song on the album. "Time Flies" could also work as a single, but I bet that one will remain an album track. "Sing Em Good My Friend" is great, and I'd love to see it get released. I think it will be a single at some point, but it most likely won't be next.

I'm glad to see it projected to outsell HW in its first week. Since that one did eventually sell 1.1 million copies, I'm hoping that this one will at least cross the 1 million mark at some point, though it will most likely need a few big hits to do so.

The only thing I hate is that Kenny Chesney will be #2 on the top 200 behind Justin Beiber. Beiber is expected to do at least double of Chesney's totals.

Some of the ballads on here are simply amazing ("Sing Em' Good My Friend", "El Cerrito Place") but there seems to be a lack of Kenny's signature catchy upbeat songs. Actually, there isn't one upbeat song which I'm really crazy about. It's a ballad-heavy album, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this just seems a lot different compared to his recent albums.

I really hope "Sing Em' Good My Friend" gets released as a single. It isn't very radio-friendly, but if anyone can climb the chart with a song like that, it would be Kenny. I think they might release it as a 4th single. (I'm guessing "Fishbowl" will be the 3rd single)