Luke Combs is gearing up to drop his 3rd career studio album, Growin’ Up, next week, and as arguably (or not that arguably) the biggest thing in country music over the past few years, the question is…
Can he keep the momentum going?
Singing relatable songs about life, live and cold, cold beer, Luke Combs has managed to relate to the country music world in ways that most artists can only dream about.
In a lot of ways, Luke flipped the script on the country music world when he broke out in 2016.
With a sound that harkens back to the glory days of ’90s country, a great voice, and songs that hit home, he proved that you don’t have to be a male model singing watered down, Auto-Tuned, pop songs to be a country music superstar.
Although, that wasn’t the case in the beginning when he was meeting with Nashville record labels. He tells the New York Times that it was more about the looks than the music:
“You walk in the door and it’s an immediate ‘no’ before you’ve said a word.
You’ve got to think, everyone was hot back then. The blueprint was, ‘Let’s get a good-looking guy, Auto-Tune his voice, then put out a song. In a lot of ways, it’s still like that.”
He ain’t wrong, there’s still A LOT of that…
But now, some six years later with two monster records under his belt, an unstoppable run of #1 singles, and Entertainer of the Year Award, Grammy nominations and more, Luke’s underdog mentality, and everyman personality has worked beyond anyone’s wildest expectations… even his own.
So where to next? Well, much like the album’s title, Luke is growin’ up.
In fact, he says there isn’t a single beer song on the entire album:
“I’m in this transitional phase where there are days that I’m like, ‘I could crush 100 beers tonight at a bar and play for five hours.’
Other nights, I don’t want to get off the couch. I want to hang with my wife and get ready to have this kid.”
That doesn’t mean the overall sound is gonna change.
Luke plans to keep doing what he does best, as he continues to grow, as a songwriter, a husband, a father, and a person, the music is going to grow with him:
“Let’s say ‘This One’s for You’ is the record a lot of people that like me fell in love with. If I put out an album that’s completely different, those people are like, ‘I bought this grape Gatorade and now it tastes like limes.’
But I also don’t want to put out the same record seven or eight times.”
I guess we’ll all find out on June 24th.
Either way, Luke Combs is a runaway freight train of momentum, and “growin’ up” or not, there are no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
