If there’s one thing that the past couple of years has taught us, it’s that the good ol’ ’90s country sound we all know and love is coming back around.
With that being said, there’s one particular up-and-comer that will take you straight back to trucker hats, honky-tonks, flannels with the sleeves ripped off, and Bud Heavys like it’s 1995 again…
And that’s Joshua Hedley.
Hedley’s debut studio album has a old school vibe reminiscent of the ’50s and ’60s, but his new album, titled Neon Blue, is straight outta the heartbeat of ’90s country:
“The last bastion of country music was the early 1990s, roughly 1989 through 1996. You could turn on the radio and immediately know you’re hearing a country song. You could still hear steel guitar and fiddle.
But there was a hard fork around 1996 or ‘97, when country veered off into pop territory. ‘Neon Blue’ asks, ‘what if that fork never happened? What if country kept on sounding like country?’”
We’ve heard the titled track, “Neon Blue,” but today, he’s back with another twanger, “Broke Again.”
It’s a boot stompin’ honky-tonker about working your ass off, but can’t get ahead because those weekend nights in the neon lights are simply too hard to pass up.
Needless to say, it will have you reminiscing on songs like Mark Chesnutt’s “Goin’ Through The Big D,” and so many others that made that time period one of the best for country music’s popularity.
No doubt this is one that’ll be added to the Saturday night beer drinkin’ playlist.
