Luke Combs - 'Fathers & Sons'

[Darkest Hour]

1. Front Door Famous (Blake Densmore, Luke Combs, Nick Columbia, Noah Thompson, Robert Snyder)
2. In Case I Ain't Around (Dan Isbell, Jamie Davis, Luke Combs, Ray Fulcher, Reid Isbell)
3. Huntin' by Yourself (Alex Palmer, Luke Combs, Michael Tyler, Ray Fulcher, Thomas Archer)
4. Little Country Boys (Blair Daly, Dallas Davidson, Luke Bryan)
5. Whoever You Turn Out to Be (Ben Stennis, Rhett Akins)
6. Remember Him That Way (Erik Dylan, Jessi Alexander, Jonathan Singleton, Luke Combs)
7. The Man He Sees in Me (Josh Phillips, Luke Combs)
8. All I Ever Do is Leave (Andrew Dorff, Jessi Alexander, Jonathan Singleton)
9. Plant a Seed (Jeff Hyde, Luke Combs, Robert Snyder, Wyatt McCubbin)
10. Ride Around Heaven (Casey Beathard, Jeremy Stover, Luke Combs, Wyatt McCubbin)
11. My Old Man Was Right (Lori McKenna, Luke Combs)
12. Take Me Out to the Ballgame (Adam James, Luke Combs, Ray Fulcher)



Focus track is Remember Him That Way.

[George Strait Junkie]

The one album of his I won’t buy such a bore but I figured as much as the topic does nothing for me

[dm2081]

Everything song kinda sounds the same on this album. It’s not bad but not overly exciting. I think I’ll be surprised if we get more than one single at radio. “The Man He Sees In Me” and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” seem like the best options.

[CoJoFan]

This is by far the worst album he’s released. Not saying I dislike the album by any means because Luke is one of my favorite voices on radio. I knew by the name of the album this was gonna be a ballad driven album. I’m ready for him to release another foot stomping rocking song like “Beer Never Broke My Heart” or “Cold As You”.

[raylatch98]

Jun 14, 2024 15:31:27 GMT -5 CoJoFan said:

This is by far the worst album he’s released. Not saying I dislike the album by any means because Luke is one of my favorite voices on radio. I knew by the name of the album this was gonna be a ballad driven album. I’m ready for him to release another foot stomping rocking song like “Beer Never Broke My Heart” or “Cold As You”.

Isn't his current single that in "Ain't No Love In Oklahoma"?

[austin]

I see this album as a side project he was passionate about releasing, and I won’t be surprised if there isn’t a proper single from it. If there was going to be, I think they would have waited until the Twister single was done to release it. I assume he has a more mainstream country record ready to go after the Twister single.

[.indulgecountry]

Jun 14, 2024 16:50:46 GMT -5 austin said:

I see this album as a side project he was passionate about releasing, and I won’t be surprised if there isn’t a proper single from it. If there was going to be, I think they would have waited until the Twister single was done to release it. I assume he has a more mainstream country record ready to go after the Twister single.

This. They obviously released this when they did because of Father's Day, but the quick rollout of it combined with him not having a current single at radio from it makes me think that it'll stay a side project. I could *maybe* see them release 1 single to radio off it after the Twisters single to help pad out the rest of the year if he isn't ready with another full album till 2025, but I'd say that would be the absolute most that this project amounts to.

[gardyfan]

I'm still waiting for the side project with Billy Strings that was supposed to be out after his previous album. Might have be 2 back actually.

[Darkest Hour]

Him saying this is not a side project on social media is funny though.

Jun 14, 2024 20:14:26 GMT -5 gardyfan said:

I'm still waiting for the side project with Billy Strings that was supposed to be out after his previous album. Might have be 2 back actually.

I thought the original wording is bluegrass album so it is not limited to Billy Strings as a collaborator. Heck this album features ao many bluegrass musicians that we will definitely see again in that album, but I don't think he is in a rush to release it even if it was made. He needs to sharpen the songwriting still.

[Darkest Hour]

US Spotify - Friday
14 (+24) The Man He Sees in Me (1,199,481 streams)
53 (new) Remember Him That Way (724,543 streams)
59 (new) Front Door Famous (677,857 streams)
76 (new) In Case I Ain't Around (610,814 streams)
90 (new) Huntin' By Yourself (572,763 streams)
124 (new) Little Country Boys (508,013 streams)
133 (new) Whoever You Turn Out to Be (493,067 streams)
190 (new) All I Ever Do Is Leave (413,177 streams)

Spotify counter numbers:

[someguy]

This certainly seems like a side project. amazon.ca doesn't even have it.

[Kanenrá:ke]

So I kind of love this and think it’s his strongest project overall.

My only knocks against it are, if you don’t connect to the topic you’re out of luck, and being all mid tempo/ballad. Could’ve used a tempo pick up somewhere.

Having said those complaints, he sounds fantastic and connected in a way I don’t always hear from him. You can tell this is something he truly needed to say and put out there. On top of that the production is gorgeous.

I haven’t ever loved his previous albums as they didn’t gel to me, despite some fantastic album cuts. This one will still be an album I have to be in the mood for given the lack of variety topic/sound wise, but it’s easily my favourite from him. A great concept album.

[.indulgecountry]

I gave the album a listen and wasn't too impressed. It's definitely way too samey to truly enjoy these 12 songs back-to-back. I get the idea behind it and am happy he released this little side project because I hope it encourages other big name artists to do continue doing fun passion projects like this to spice things up (and do it now while they're still relevant rather than once they're relegated to legacy act status), but it's just not really an album that appeals to me much. I will listen to it some more in the future and try to maybe cherry-pick a few of the songs out to keep for my playlists, i.e. "The Man He Sees in Me," which was the correct choice for the early buzz track as it's the one song that grabbed me from the record thus far.

[taylor is terrified]

Wow…okay. So. I think in my five years on Pulse, I’ve shared some of my lore regarding fathers, but I feel like my thoughts on this album need to be prefaced with some backstory context here. I wanna say that some details will be quite shocking for some, so just know that going in. I don’t wanna bog this post down with that word wall, so I’ve hidden it behind a spoiler tag if you care at all lmfao.

SPOILER: Click to show

{tl;dr: the important men in my life have all let me down in critical ways and thus I grew up without a proper father figure.}
I grew up—and still go on living—without a proper father figure. I’m not certain I’ve shared this on Pulse, but my biological father shook me to stop me from crying one night and later threw me against a wall. I was a three-month-old infant, and many of the bruises from that event stayed on my skin until I was around eight or nine years old—that is genuinely not hyperbole; my mom told me she found me screaming in agony when she came to pick me up hours later (I was born out of wedlock and their relationship barely lasted throughout the pregnancy, and so it was an every other weekend kind of thing with me for those three months) and the newspaper article from February 2001 that we have describes me as having had lacerations up and down my body. There are also tiny white scars on my skin from that night to this day—I’m nearly 24 years old. He was arrested on multiple charges of course, and my mom naturally ceased all contact with him thereafter. I never saw my father again until I was 10 years old—he called up out of the blue one day via his mother (Mom was still in contact with her; my paternal grandma was fully on our side as anyone with sense would be), saying that he wanted to try again and my Mom gave me control of the decision to visit him, with her supervision. I said yes, and so we went to his place for a weekend in November—I believe it was just before Thanksgiving 2010—and in that entire weekend, nothing of note happened. He made zero effort. I have not seen him in the 14 years since. The only other real father figure in my life is a man I have spoken about on Pulse—long story short, he was abusive to both my mother and I, nearly killing her when I was 16 years old. And then there’s my grandfather, who Pulse also knows is no patron saint.

Because of all that, the father/son topics have typically tended to bore me to tears. No matter the genre, no matter the artist. Carrie Underwood sang a song about her father and it’s my least favorite from its parent album. And of course—more importantly—Father’s Day has always been a very difficult and emotional day for me. So imagine my shock when I gave Fathers & Sons a spin today and found myself enamored with it.

This album is fucking incredible. It’s very clearly a passion project, but those always turn out to be an artist’s best imo—you can tell that they believe what they’re singing, and it makes you feel it even more as a result. Luke’s vocals convey that loud and clear here. With this album being centered on such a rocky subject for me, you’d think I’d come away thinking it to be incredibly boring due to its inability to be relatable to me—and I thought as much myself. However, something about it hit me hard. I was starting to be emotional very early on, but then “The Man He Sees In Me” struck me out of nowhere, and from there onwards I was a snot-nosed wreck. The production throughout is lovely—much like Carly Pearce’s hummingbird, this album is filled to the brim with lush country instrumentation that sounds heavenly. If they go with a single (they’ll surely only pick one), they have a few to pick from, but the two that I think they narrow it down to are “The Man He Sees In Me” and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” The latter is just stunning in every which way.

A+ record. I think it hit me so hard for this reason: I can’t relate to any of it, but I WANT to someday hopefully soon. I’ve spoken on Pulse before about my wish to have children—it’s one of my biggest life hopes. This album makes me want a son first, lol.

My standouts: “Front Door Famous,” “The Man He Sees In Me,” “All I Ever Do Is Leave,” “Plant a Seed,” “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”

[Darkest Hour]

Predicted to have 15k pure sales and 60k SPS fiest week. #2 country and #5 overall.

[zdm1998]

Not bad considering the album was only announced a few weeks ago. On top of there being no actively promoted single from it.

[Darkest Hour]

Apple Music interview about this album.

[onebuffalo]

#2 country, #6 top 200 album with 60,000 SPS. Congratulations Luke Combs.

[Darkest Hour]

Hot 100:
#35 (new) Remember Him That Way
#39 (+19) The Man He Sees In Me
#95 (new) Front Door Famous

Bubbling Under Hot 100:
#2 (new) Huntin' By Yourself
#7 (new) In Case I Ain't Around
#22 (new) Little Country Boys

[Darkest Hour]

CD outside of his website (which is out of stock right now) will be released on August 30th.

www.target.com/p/luke-combs-fathers-sons-cd/-/A-92928525#lnk=sametab

[Sugar Rush]

I listened to this album a while ago, and I found it fantastic. It’s such a nice breath of fresh air compared to the standard bro-country mantra infecting the males of country music right now. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

[someguy]

Jul 19, 2024 7:34:05 GMT -5 Darkest Hour said:

CD outside of his website (which is out of stock right now) will be released on August 30th.

www.target.com/p/luke-combs-fathers-sons-cd/-/A-92928525#lnk=sametab

This seems to be the new trend. Recent releases from Zach Bryan and Eminem (among others) are also releasing physical copies weeks to months later.

[CoJoFan]

Jul 20, 2024 2:01:40 GMT -5 someguy said:

Jul 19, 2024 7:34:05 GMT -5 Darkest Hour said:

CD outside of his website (which is out of stock right now) will be released on August 30th.

www.target.com/p/luke-combs-fathers-sons-cd/-/A-92928525#lnk=sametab

This seems to be the new trend. Recent releases from Zach Bryan and Eminem (among others) are also releasing physical copies weeks to months later.

CD’s are hard to find out in the wild anymore unless you go to an actual record store. Big retailers don’t even seem to get new releases anymore.

[bigd79]

Barnes and Noble and Amazon are seemingly all thats left for me. Target and Walmart care more about vinyl and kpop these days.
If i go to bigger city though i try to seek out local record stores if i know they will have a decent cd section. A place like Down in the Valley in the twin cities area fits that criteria. And i love cheapo discs down there as well although thats more for finding used cds but they do have some new ones i’ve noticed.

[someguy]

Amazon is my only option now, except the odd record store in a bigger city. The last remaining walmart near me that sold music has now stopped.

[gardyfan]

Jul 23, 2024 23:04:38 GMT -5 bigd79 said:

Barnes and Noble and Amazon are seemingly all thats left for me. Target and Walmart care more about vinyl and kpop these days.
If i go to bigger city though i try to seek out local record stores if i know they will have a decent cd section. A place like Down in the Valley in the twin cities area fits that criteria. And i love cheapo discs down there as well although thats more for finding used cds but they do have some new ones i’ve noticed.

DITV and Cheapo are way to expensive for new cds. I always use Amazon since they give me the lowest advertised price up to release date.