Review - Parker McCollum

It takes guts to strip it all down when you’re sitting at the top.

Parker McCollum could’ve mailed it in. He could’ve gone on autopilot and put an album out that would have served his career fine. It would have garnered radio play and attention. The mainstream would applaud and the wheels would keep rolling. But, he wanted more.

The result? An honest, daring effort that seems like the most complete work of his career.

The self-titled Parker McCollum isn’t just a collection of songs, it’s a reintroduction of sorts. A reminder that beneath the radio success and massive fanbase is a Conroe kid who grew up with Randy Rogers Band and Wade Bowen as his biggest guideposts. Fitting that he would co-write tracks for this album with them.

The true nod that this album is different is that he selected Frank Liddell as producer. Liddell is a music legend. He has produced the most classic albums from the likes of Jack Ingram (Electric) and Chris Knight (self-titled), as well as shepherded the bulk of Miranda Lambert's career. That's nothing to say of what he's accomplished with his spouse. Another east Texan you've likely heard of, LeeAnn Womack.

The album opens with “My Blue,” a dusty, piano driven gut punch co-written with longtime Liddell co-conspirator Scooter Carusoe that lets you know from the jump, this probably isn't business as usual. The vocals are raw. The production is just enough. And the emotion is on the edge of it all. It’s the kind of song we don’t get enough of anymore. Vulnerable, unguarded, and brave in its simplicity. A harbinger of things to come as the rest of the tracks roll out.

It rolls right into "Big Sky" which counts Texas songwriter Jarrod Morris as one of its cowriters and has an easygoing flow which name drops Corsicana (hometown of Billy Joe Shaver) while mentioning the need to "haul ass back to Houston". It feels like a classic Texas Music song in the vein of something Roger Creager might have released in 1999. "Solid Country Gold" really isn't what you think it will be when you first glance at the title. Co-written with Jon Randall and the Warren Brothers, it rolls out with the type of swag that only someone Parker could make believable. It's a nod to the fact that he's not the youngest kid on the Limestone block anymore, but he's still more than capable of having a good time while hoping to hear Guy Clark and Rodney Crowell on the radio. This song also has some of the best standalone lyrics on the entire album. The kind that will be etched on bathroom stalls and yearbook quotes for the next decade. "Sleeping's good for dreaming y'all, but it don't pay the rent..."

"Tell Jesus I'm in Texas when they put me in the dirt..."

The arrangements on all the songs aren’t busy. They breathe. They give Parker’s voice room to stretch and ache and mend. When he drops lines like “all my sunny days are gone” you believe him. Songs like "Watch Me Bleed" and "Sunny Days" are just about as good as country music gets. Raw, honest, life. It evokes the style and vibe of songs like Jamey Johnson's "In Color" or Lambert's "House That Built Me".

Parker’s not just trying to sound like where he’s from. He’s trying to sound like who he is.

And then there’s “Permanent Headphones”, a song Parker wrote when he was 15. It somehow holds up. And that’s kind of the whole story with this album. It's about going back to the beginning to figure out what got you here in the first place.

This isn’t an album built for the algorithm age. It’s one made for that late night drive when you’ve got too much on your mind and nothing but static between stations. A long haul record. For you and for Parker McCollum.

Is this Parker’s best album? Depends who you ask.

If you want radio ready Parker, the “Handle on You” guy, well you might miss the hooks. If you want the Texas singer-songwriter who cut his teeth in smoky bars and spilled his guts into songs like “Hell of a Year,” then you’ll feel right at home. But, there's room for everyone at this party. There's enough accessibility in some of these songs for mainstream radio play. And there's enough homegrown grit to make the Texans happy.

It’s introspective without being soft. Bold without being showy. And it proves that Parker McCollum climbed the highest mountains of country music but never got above his raising and his heart has remained in Texas all along.

This is the kind of record you make when you stop trying to please everyone and start trying to please the 15-year-old version of yourself again. Parker just might’ve pulled it off.