If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?
Reigning ACM Artist of the Decade, Jason Aldean, has had a pretty fascinating career. With 32 #1s, 27 platinum certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and over 55 million units sold in the U.S. alone, the “She’s Country” singer has had a career few could ever dream of.
Despite delivering some rock-solid hits over the years, namely with early tracks such as “Why,” “The Truth” and “Laughed Until We Cried,” lately, Aldean hasn’t quite lived up to the expectations in recent memory. Quite frankly, his stretch of three albums starting from 2019’s 9 to the double album, Macon and Georgia, was pretty forgettable , with the Georgia native delivering career lows on tracks such as Georgia’s autotune disaster, “Ain’t Enough Cowboy.”
With that being said, however, there’s really no denying just how successful he’s been from a pure commercial standpoint. Beyond the aforementioned ACM Artist of the Decade nod, he’s scored some major career accomplishments over the past year. In particular, he recently passed both Alan Jackson and George Strait for fourth-most #1s on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart (27) back in July when his current single, “Don’t Tell On Me,” rose to #1.
He also made history and became one of only five artists in country music to score two or more Diamond singles with “Dirt Road Anthem” and “You Make It Easy,” joining the likes of Morgan Wallen (5), Luke Combs (4), Zach Bryan (2), Luke Bryan (2) and Kane Brown (2).
Like many of the most popular artists in country music this century, Aldean is one of those acts you either love or you hate. His fans typically enjoy his rock edge and the undoubtedly successful stadium anthems he’s brought to the table throughout his career. On the other hand, you have his critics (whom I often find myself agreeing with more times than not), who often criticize his lack of songwriting credits, repetitive sound and being a major player in the 2010s bro-country heyday.
When it’s all set and done, Aldean can be described, for lack of a better term, as a “bread and butter” type of artist. He honed in on a sound that worked early in his career, found the type of songs that work well for him at country radio and really didn’t deviate from it much — outside of a few exceptions like the aforementioned “Dirt Road Anthem” and “You Make It Easy.”
That “bread and butter” theory can even be found in his song titles. Recently, videos have been going viral on social media taking a look at just how many times he’s referenced the word “town” in his discography over the past 20 years. When I first saw these, I immediately thought of smash hits like “Hicktown,” “Tattoos on This Town” and his controversial 2023 all-genre #1, “Try That In a Small Town.” With that being said, however, there are WAY more.
There are also deep cuts, such as “Two Night Town” from 2014’s Old Boots, New Dirt, “This Nothin’ Town” from 2019’s 9, the incredibly trite “Small Town Small” from 2021’s Macon and, of course, the title track of 2018’s Rearview Town. In fact, out of his 12 studio albums, only two don’t contain at least one song with “town” in the title — with the three being Relentless and They Don’t Know.
Throughout his career, Aldean has released a staggering 11 different tracks that contain the word “town.”
- “Hicktown”
- “Crazy Town”
- “Tattoos on This Town”
- “This Nothin’ Town”
- “Two Night Town”
- “Rearview Town”
- “Champagne Town”
- “Keeping It Small Town”
- “Small Town Small”
- “Try That In a Small Town”
- “Little Hometown Left”
Obviously, artists like to lean on different tropes and topics in their music. Hell, earlier in the year, we took a tongue-in-cheek look at how many times Evan Felker of the legendary Turnpike Troubadours starts songs off with the word “Well…”
With that being said, however, it does go to show how radio-friendly artists like Aldean are sticking to their guns and tropes at an INCREDIBLY high rate these days.
“Tattoos on This Town”
“Try That In a Small Town”
