Randy Houser - "Fired Up"

[phil1996]

Full album available for stream a week before the March 11 release date

www.cmt.com/artists/randy-houser/

1. Back
2. We Went
3. Chasing Down a Good Time
4. Senior Year
5. Mine Tonight
6. Lucky Me
7. Song Number 7
8. Before Midnight
9. True
10. Yesterday's Whiskey
11. Fired Up
12. Little Bit Older
13. Gotta Get You Home
14. Hot Beer and Cold Women
15. Same Ole Saturday Night
16. One Way (Bonus)
17. Whiskeysippi River (Bonus)

[phil1996]

Half the stuff on here is really good, and the other half sucks. That's how I'd put it.

Great:
"Yesterday's Whiskey"
"One Way"
"Back"
"Hot Beer and Cold Women"
"Senior Year"
"Lucky Me"
"True"
"Little Bit Older"

Pretty good:
"Whiskeysippi River
"Song Number 7

Blah:
"Mine Tonight"
"We Went"
"Before Midnight"
"Same Ole Saturday Night"
"Gotta Get You Home"
"Fired Up"
"Chasing Down a Good Time

The "blah" songs above are so annoying to me. They're all the same bro topic (literally). Like 5 songs about driving a girl home from a party...he's 40 isn't he?

There are some excellent tracks on here though, I must say. "Yesterday's Whiskey" is absolutely incredible. Best vocal performance from Houser to date. "Hot Beer and Cold Women", "One Way" (with Stapleton backing him up), "Back", and a few others listed above are tremendous. Definitely some gems on this, that aren't only great songs lyrically, but show his voice off. But unfortunately a decent amount clunkers here too. Overall I'd give this a 8/10 and only 8 because of songs like Yesterday's Whiskey/One Way/Back/Senior Year

[CoJoFan]

I can't force myself to listen to the album yet. I'm one of the type that like to buy an album then listen to it several times before I have an opinion of it. I met Randy in Nashville in 2013. He was one of the nicest artists I met there.

[Deleted]

Yikes...this isn't very good at all.

"Back" isn't too bad, but I feel like the Colt Ford/Jake Owen song "Back" is way better. Randy's song is the same theme but it falls a little flat for me. "Senior Year" isn't too bad either, but there's something about it that just isn't quite working for me. I can't put my finger on it, though.

"Mine Tonight", on the other hand, is awful. Can Nashville songwriters seriously just stop ending or starting every line with "girl" or "hey girl" already? And then rhyming "girl" with...surprise, "girl"! "We Went" bores me to tears, and I didn't particularly enjoy "Chasing Down A Good Time", either -- nothing memorable about it.

I like the production on "Lucky Me" a lot, and I like pretty much all of the song, but the hook sounds really awkward to me, and it pretty much ruins the song (ugh). The apparent 2nd single, "Song Number 7", isn't too bad...but it's not good either. It's basically the same theme covered by Luke Bryan's "I Don't Want This Night To End". The hook seems like weak songwriting to me...I mean, we're not told anything about "song number 7", other than that it "took me all the way to heaven that night" after they "cranked it all the way up to eleven". "Song Number 7" is basically a song about a song, but like Luke Bryan's "Play It Again", it falls completely flat. There's just nothing substantive about it. One thing's for certain -- it sure ain't no "I Go Back".

"Before Midnight"...ugh. "You're lookin' so damn fine, ain't no way I'm gonna get you home before midnight". If that's not bad enough, here are some other things covered by the lyrics of "Before Midnight": sippin' something from a cup? Check. Her lips taste extra sweet when she kisses him? Check. Driving at night in the middle of nowhere? Check. Girl dancing in the headlights, barefoot in the grass with her hair down? Check. In short, "Before Midnight" sounds like another Luke Bryan/Jason Aldean reject.

"True" isn't too bad lyrically, but again, there's nothing all that great about it either. And that production...yikes. It's way overdone...nothing but extremely loud electric guitars. "True" is the 9th track on the album, and so far it sound like nothing but watered-down rock music.

"Yesterday's Whiskey"...ah, finally a song with some pretty good lyrics. It's still a bit over-produced, but at least I can hear some steel guitar mixed in with the electric guitars. Randy sounds way better on this song than on the generic bro-country songs, too. "Yesterday's Whiskey" is the type of quality song that Houser should be seeking out...not songs like "Mine Tonight", "Before Midnight", "We Went", etc.

"Fired Up" is absolutely awful. It's like the 5th song on the album about how the woman's beauty takes the guy's breath away. It also references a pickup trick with cold beer in the console, and the girl is dancing in a sundress, her finger tips and her kiss driving the guy wild. We've heard this song 500 times in recent years, and half a dozen times on this album alone.

"Little Bit Older"...hey, a song that I like! It's not amazing by any means, but so far it's 2nd best behind only "Yesterday's Whiskey". The sad thing is, this only makes 2/12 songs that I like. Probably 8 of the previous 10 are bro-country songs with the lyrics recycled from one song to another.

"Gotta Get You Home"...welp, we're back to bro-country. Guy and girl are at a bar, she's looking so fine that he's gotta get her home so they can...well, you know. Second verse they're driving back home in a -- you guessed it -- a truck! Chris Young covered this territory in "Gettin' You Home", and that song is 1000 times superior to "Gotta Get You Home".

"Hot Beer and Cold Women"...despite the title, this song is actually pretty good. The verses are basically a conversation between the narrator and God, with the narrator acknowledging that he's lost his way and that he needs to change his ways and try to live a better life...the twist is that the song ends with the narrator revealing that he doesn't think he can quite get away from his bad habits. The only thing I'm not too fond about is, once again, the title/hook. Something about it just sound a bit clumsy/awkward to me.

"Same Ole Saturday Night"...driving in the country on a backroad, her lips on his, in the bed of a truck, driving home through a cloud of dust. SERIOUSLY, RANDY?

"One Way"...I can't believe I made it this far into the album, but I guess I'm glad I did because this song is fairly well-written. Good lyrics reminiscing on old times and a past flame. It's way over-produced though. Screaming electric guitars and a ton of strings, too. According to CMT, "One Way" is the first of two bonus tracks, though...WHY, RANDY? It's better than pretty much all of the first 15 tracks, except for maybe "Yesterday's Whiskey".

And finally, "Whiskeysippi River". Wow, I actually really like this one. I was rolling my eyes at the title, but it's a fun song that's well-written and the production is really good, too. But of course it's also a bonus track, lol. Go figure, 2 of the 3 best tracks are the bonus tracks, and pretty much all the others are generic, interchangeable, throwaway bro-country tunes.

**

I quite enjoyed Randy's How Country Feels album. "Runnin' Outta Moonlight" might not be all that original, and it's one of those "drive in the country under the moonlight" songs, but I've always thought it was a great song and really catchy, too. I still listen to it a lot and for some reason it doesn't feel like a bro-country song to me like so many of the similar-themed songs on Fired Up do. How Country Feels had a few clunkers (the title track, "Sunshine On The Line", and "Let's Not Let It") but it also had plenty of really good songs, including "The Singer", "Power Of A Song", "Wherever Love Goes", "Like A Cowboy", and "Route 3 Box 250 D". And even the more radio-friendly tracks -- "Growin' Younger", "Top Of The World", "Absolutely Nothing", "Along For The Ride", "Goodnight Kiss", and the aforementioned "Runnin' Outta Moonlight" -- were all pretty good. Not spectacular, but solid. Fired Up is the opposite...the vast majority of the songs cover the same, tired bro themes, and what's worse is that they pretty much all sound the same.

This is a harsh review but wow, this album is extremely disappointing to me. I honestly can't believe how bad this album is...I just never thought that Randy would put out an album full of such unimaginative, cliched bro-country songs. And it sounds dated too, like watered-down rock music with bro-country lyrics.

I'll pass on this one...maybe I'll give it one more listen just to give Randy a second chance (because I've liked a decent amount of Randy's previous material), but I don't think I'll be changing my mind about Fired Up. I might download "Yesterday's Whiskey", "One Way", and maybe "Whiskeysippi River", "Little Bit Older", and "Hot Beer and Cold Women", but that's it. The rest of the album is an extreme disappointment to me. I think I'd rate it 1 out of 5 stars, if that.

[sabre14]

Oh my goodness...half this album is the same song just regurgitated into different cliches.

"Before Midnight" is laughably bad. I mean, I know in order to qualify as a cliche it has to work on some level, but how can a songwriter write this stuff on paper and not giggle at themselve?

"Mine Tonight", "Fired Up" and "Gotta Get You Home" are basically "Before Midnight" but the latter just stuck out the most with its terrible lyrics.

I think Randy's voice is stellar but his upbeat songs have been just not good to me.

[Deleted]

Well jhomes87 already did a great job with explaining this album. But man, as bad as the lyrics are on this album (and for the most part, they are BAD), I think the production may be the most offensive thing here. It's way too loud on this album. I literally developed a headache after hearing "Chasing Down A Good Time".

At 17 tracks, I was at least expecting a mixed bag here. Randy has a heck of a voice and I was confident he could at least make some of this generic material somewhat better with that voice. However I can honestly say there may be only be one song on here I really remember and actually genuinely liked, and that was "Hot Beer and Cold Women".

I really don't know if I can slap a grade on this mostly because I don't think I could make it through another listen.

[phil1996]

Throw away "Mine Tonight", "Before Midnight", "Gotta Get You Home", "Fired Up", and "Same Ole Saturday Night" (I still can't get over the fact that these five songs are all nearly identical) and you have a really good album.

Re: the above 5 bro-songs....Dallas Davidson wrote 4 of them.....

[Kentucky25]

Will wait til I've listened to the album more to grade songs, but I like it so far (bro-country really doesn't bother me anymore). Randy's voice is a as great as usual, the back half of the album is quite strong really (including the bonus tracks).
I'll say "Before Midnight" has such a similar sound to "Runnin' Outta Moonlight" not to mention the similar lyrical themes. I know the bro-songs will bother a lot here, but I've honestly found almost all the songs enjoyable (save for maybe "Whiskeysippi River" which is just not my style.
I would still hold that "We Went" is the worst song on the album...so many better songs they could've released.

[Uncle Lumpy]

Holy drum loop Batman! Even the handful of songs I could almost enjoy are screwed up by the electronic sounding percussion. I may pay for a download of "Whiskeysippi River" & I've already bought "Little Bit Older". But this album is a big ol glob of boring. Such a pity. There was a time when I thought Randy was really something special but this album kind of seals the deal with me. Hes officially another sell out and chasing yesterdays trends. He's so much better than this.

[dm2081]

"Hot Beer And Cold Women", "Senior Year", and "Yesterday's Whiskey" are absolute gems. There's a couple of decent fodder songs on here as well, but I'll be hoping one of those 3 songs is the 3rd single.

[kim8]

So I was really looking forward to this album and was quite scared when I read all the reviews on here. I got it the other day and have listened through a few times. I've never bought any of Randy's albums but he has grown on me tremendously lately. I really enjoyed this album. Yes, there are some stupid lines and some of the songs are very similar, but even those I find really catchy. I'd much rather listen to Randy sing almost anything than some of the other bro songs out there.

My favorite is One Way, wow what a song! The fact that Stapleton wrote and sings on this is just a bonus. That was my favorite even before I realized that was the one he wrote.

I'm also really fond of Back. It's very catchy and I hope it's a single. I think it could do really well.

Most all the ballads were really great. Senior Year, Hot Beer and Cold Women and Yesterday's Whiskey are all gems (oops sorry dm2081, I wasn't trying to copy what you just wrote above my post lol; must have been stuck in my brain from when I read these last night but I agree 100%).

For uptempo, I find Lucky Me super fun and catchy.

I'd say Fired Up is the worst one, but even that one I find catchy. The lyrics are pretty bad though.

I also find Same Ole Sat night pretty fun.

Little Bit Older would have made a much better second single. I really can't get into Song Number 7. I'll still pull for it and it's fine, I just like so many other songs much better.

[phil1996]

Brilliant article on Randy. He goes back to the days of "They Call Me Cadillac", and such.

www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-randy-houser-is-putting-the-voice-back-in-country-20160314

Sure there are a handful of bro-songs on here, but if it helps this amazing voice get recognized (surely has), then so be it. I was a huge fan from the day he debuted Anything Goes, and it's awesome to see him get the recognition he deserves. So much talent.

[onebuffalo]

#3 country, #15 top 200 album with 21,000 sold. Congratulations, Randy Houser!

[phil1996]

I was expecting a lot more than 21K. It actually seemed like this had a decent amount of hype too.

[Deleted]

Mar 22, 2016 17:09:27 GMT -5 phil1996 said:

I was expecting a lot more than 21K. It actually seemed like this had a decent amount of hype too.

I actually felt the opposite. I did think Randy could do at least 25-30k, but in my opinion it didn't seem like there was much hype for this at all, and given the album's track length, I imagine that it was probably priced pretty high (which is gonna discourage people from purchasing the full album). Furthermore, "We Went" was a total non-event; it didn't move the needle very much at all from a sales and streams standpoint.

"Song Number 7" sounds like another radio hit, but I don't think it stands out enough to make a substantial impact the way that "Runnin' Outta Moonlight" and "Like A Cowboy" did from Randy's last album. "Like A Cowboy" took a long time to get going, but it's already pretty apparent that it's going to stand the test of time much better than songs like "How Country Feels", "Goodnight Kiss", and "We Went".