Listening Party!-JMC-(Growing Up Is Getting Old)

[kevin59]

APR 28

Jason Michael Carroll
"Growing Up Is Getting Old"
(Arista)

[LISTEN] Jason Michael Carroll - "Growing Up Is Getting Old" (LISTENING PARTY! ENDED)

Track List:

1. Happened On A Saturday Night (Suzie Q)
2. Let Me Go
3. Where I'm From
4. Tears
5. Growing Up Is Getting Old
6. That's All I Know
7. We Threw It All Away
8. Sorry Don't Matter
9. Barn Burner
10. Hurry Home

Source: Link provided by fellow poster tobysooner Thanks Toby

[43dudleyvillas]

Thanks for the link, kevin59 and tobysooner.

I'm here to confess an irrational love for "Happened on a Saturday Night" that hasn't subsided since I first heard the song. I find it incredibly engaging -- the melody is sweet and catchy, and it matches the whimsical observer's treatment of that little revolving door of young love really well. I think Jason Michael Carroll has a tendency to oversing (and to misplace his growls), but that's not much of an issue on this one. It seems to me that this song is the surefire hit of the album. Could be wrong, though. I wish Arista Nashville would go with this song as the next single, but it seems like they are inclined to go with some form of sentimental ballad next.

As for the rest of the album, it covers well-trodden ground from a thematic standpoint and is saddled with some bland pop-country melodies, but I give Jason Michael Carroll and his writers/co-writers credit for making the lyrics seem genuinely personal. Take "That's All I Know," for example -- it is very much in the Josh Turner "Everything Is Fine" vein, but JMC's song does a better job of fleshing out a credible personality (and I say this as someone who prefers Josh Turner's voice and artistic sensibilities). So while I'm inclined to roll my eyes a little at blatant tearjerkers like "Tears" and "Hurry Home," I think JMC makes them work. On the uptempo side, "Barn Burner" makes Dierks Bentley's "Sideways" look rather sissified from both a lyrical and vocal standpoint. The lyrics are particularly sharp, I think.

Overall, I think Jason Michael Carroll's probably too squarely a commercial artist for me to find him interesting, but I'm impressed that he manages to carve a distinct personality out in his songs.

[tobysooner]

Great cd...confessing to an irrational love for this artist and his music.
Check out CMT's Unplugged at Studio 330...
www.cmt.com/videos/unplugged/jason-michael-carroll/376744/alyssa-lies.jhtml?&id=1610063

[leilamaurizia]

HDD first-week sales prediction:

Arista/Sony Nashville’s Jason Michael Carroll... in the 15-20k range...

[mairy]

Ouch! Well, at least it's more than what Billy Ray did.

[leilamaurizia]

All Music Guide

2 1/2 out of 5 stars

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

The pensive, sepia-toned snapshot on the cover of Jason Michael Carroll's second album, Growing Up Is Getting Old, shows that the country singer is determined to leave the pretty-boy downhome hunk of his first album behind -- at least in terms of image, if not quite in terms of music. It may be a little softer, a little broader, a little bit self-consciously older, but Growing Up Is Getting Old shows the same fondness for arena country clichés as Carroll's 2007 debut, Waitin' in the Country, relying heavily on sports-bar rockers and radio-ready ballads, all peppered with signifiers of Middle American life. The whole thing opens with a Saturday night bar brawl, trucks appear in every other song, whiskey flows like water, and there are dewy-eyed salutes to "Where I'm From," trips through the past fueled by flipping through a yearbook, and product placement and name drops by the dozen -- all capped off by simple truths like "I think honesty is right/I think lying is wrong." That quote comes from "That's All I Know," one of three songs that Carroll co-wrote here, and if its strained everyman platitude suggests that he might need assistance writing, many of his made-to-order songs here pander just as heavily, sometimes dipping into the maudlin, as when the divorced dad calls home on "Tears" or when "Where I'm From" ends with a chorus of "Amazing Grace." Like before, Carroll can almost turn these coldly calculated clichés into something resembling genuine emotion -- his voice is warm and friendly, giving his readings a conversational lilt -- but even his easy touch can't disguise how Growing Up Is Getting Old is crassly constructed to hit every mark in modern country in 2009.

[joey2002]

"Tears" is an awesome song...I really like that one.

I also like the title track, and the first single a lot.

[musicbuff78]

Ya, I agree with Tears.....if that song isn't released, there's something wrong.