I've gotten dull as barbed wire from livin'....

Trace Adkins (real name Tracy, by the way) is a country singer from Louisiana who is seemingly more well known for his height and his ponytail than for his singing. However Adkins' deep baritone is one of the best male voices in the business today. Breaking out of the box big with his debut album, Dreamin' Out Loud, with 4 top-20 hits and one #1 ("This Ain't No Thinking Thing"), things were looking good. As it turned out, Adkins churned out some quality discs, though radio never consistently caught on, giving him one (maybe two) top-10 song an album, getting caught in the slew of "new" artists of his vintage. However the tide started to shift with a change in posture, going from a suave balladeer ("Every Light In The House") to evolve into some sort of Toby Keith-lite. Coincidently (or maybe not) this coincided with his period of trouble with alcohol. What comes of this now is more of a spotty output that appears to be geared on the "manly redneck" section of the country audience, sometimes to the good ("Honky Tonk Badonkadonk") and sometimes notsomuch ("Songs About Me"). And on his seventh studio album (with a greatest hits disc already done), Dangerous Man, Adkins for the most part follows where his bread is buttered. With odes to braggadocio like "Ladies Love Country Boys" and "Southern Hallelujah", the commericalism of redneck is here is full force. No worse can be displayed of that than the threatening jingoistic "Fightin' Words", which plays on the "bully is really the victim" mentality that's three times too old by now. Occasionally that can be somewhat salvaged by Adkins' humor (the players' theme "Swing") or some good guitar chops (album opener "Dangerous Man"), but Adkins' shines best on slow, dramatic numbers, and Dangerous Man is short on that, with "I Wanna Feel Something" the best of the ballad bunch. The heartfelt "The Stubborn One" gets a A for effort, portraying a grandson visiting his Alzeimer-addled grandpa, without going into too much schmaltz. Surprisingly it's jarred into the best fast number in the set, "Ride", a by-the-book driving song. And tagged on to the end of the disc is the "dance" remix of "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" that was shown in the video and eagerly awaited for. There are a few more lesser nuggets on the disc, like the anti-drug "High", and the average love numbers "Ain't No Woman Like You" and "Words Get In The Way". It'll be interesting to see if Adkins continues on the "money" route or if he returns to the A-1 material like "I'm Tryin'" and "Lonely Won't Leave Me Alone". In the meantime, Dangerous Man is a somewhat-competent but disappointing stopgap artistically, yet increasingly productive successfully.

Grade: C
Best Cuts: "Swing", "Ride", "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk (Video Remix)"
Weakest Links: "Fightin' Words", "Southern Hallelujah"

Dangerous Man hit #3 pop albums and #1 country albums.
"Swing" hit #20 country singles and #76 pop singles.
"Ladies Love Country Boys" made #1 country singles and #61 pop singles.
"I Wanna Feel Something" so far made #28 country singles.

Listen: "Ride" (link)

Buy: You can pick up a copy of Dangerous Man at sites like here and here.

and now for the clips...first off the obvious video to "Swing"...



next up, the surprise #1 of "Ladies Love Country Boys"...



And the video of "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk", with the remix from this album...