Tangled Up (Deluxe), by Thomas Rhett

It is probably no surprise that I have never listened to a full Thomas Rhett album before. In general, unless I am invited to rank down an entire album, it is pretty rare for me to listen to entire country albums. My attitude towards the genre in general is that I like singles, and enjoy listening to hits, and if an artist interests me creatively, I might then listen to their whole albums apart from the greatest hits and best of compilations that I am most fond of. Concerning Rhett himself, while he has definitely made songs that I enjoyed, I have never thought of him as having the sort of consistency in his musical career that albums were all that appealing to me to listen to, although since I was invited to listen to this album, I figured that it would be an enjoyable chance to test out how his music sounded in an entire era. The fact that this album is a deluxe album makes it even more interesting as a test case. Is this a worthy album? Let’s see.

The album begins with “Anthem,” which is an attempt by Rhett to show some swagger, but the production is a bit irritating to me rather than appealing as it is meant to be. “Crash And Burn” is musically rather repetitive but is at least somewhat appealing as a post-breakup anthem, so that works well enough. “Southside” is the sort of song where the writers thought that they were being so clever, but the production is pretty inorganic and the song pretty inessential. “Die A Happy Man” is a pretty basic acoustic love song with a guy and his guitar, but there is a reason why this was a smash hit–it’s an appealing song with appealing production and simplicity and space in the recording. More like this would be pretty welcome. “Vacation” is the sort of bargain basement song that tries to present itself like a fun vacation jam but it ends up sounding tedious and try-hard, which makes it pretty mid for this album. “Like It’s The Last Time” is an appealing mid-tempo anthem, with enjoyable music. It’s pretty basic, but this is enjoyable, at least, so this is worth celebrating. “T-Shirt” is a song that has moderately irritating production and lyrics that want to think that it’s far more clever and original than it is. “Single Girl” is an enjoyable enough song to listen to on its own terms, but as an effort to encourage single girls it seems particularly misguided in its message. “The Day You Stop Looking Back” doesn’t happen to say anything new about moving on, but what it says is true enough and appealingly produced, and that makes it a pretty solid track here. “Tangled Up,” the title track, has the sort of production that would be more appealing in an album aimed at Adult Pop or Hot AC with its gimmicky electro-pop production than it does here. This is a track he should have given to the Jonas Brothers rather than keep for himself. “Playing With Fire” is at least labeled as a pop track and the duet is an appealing with Jordan Sparks. I would have liked to have heard this one on pop radio, and it matches the album’s theme, which is a nice bonus. “I Feel Good” is a pretty mid song that I could rather take or leave, but it’s laid back enough to be inoffensive, featuring LunchMoney Lewis. “Learned It From The Radio” is a pretty basic song, but a song that is so obviously aimed at Nashville radio might as well give it some honor, since Rhett appears to learned a lot from the radio. “The Star Of The Show” is a basic but lovely enough song in praise of the singer’s significant other, and certainly a pleasant enough tune to enjoy. “American Spirit” gives a namecheck of Bud Light that was a populist-aiming sentiment in 2016 but is woefully misguided in 2023 and indicates the sort of song this is, basic but mostly harmless if you don’t think too much about it. “Background Music” is an unintentionally funny song that, like most of the album, is acceptable background music that aims to be a hit single but is too basic to be truly amazing. The deluxe album ends with two remixes. “Playing With Fire” is a pretty good duet, but not quite as enjoyable as the pop version, at least to me. The remix of “Die A Happy Man” fills up some of the negative spaces that made the original appealing, and adds Tori Kelly as an unnecessary duet partner, but it’s still enjoyable enough to listen to.

Overall, this is not a bad album. If there are a lot of songs on here I think to be somewhat on the unoriginal side, the song is self-consciously made to be full of radio hits that aim not only at Nashville but at pop audiences. This crossover effort was not immediately rewarded, but in the blend of pop, dance, slight hip-hop, and country influences, this particular album comes off as a slicker and more upbeat version of the template of the sort of country music that rules Nashville to the present-day. This album is at its best when the production lets the songs breathe and cuts down on the inorganic elements, although even at its best there is little here that is particularly original or definitive in nature. Those listeners who hate contemporary pop-country will find a lot to despise in this album, and even those inclined to enjoy pop country will likely be able to see this album as not nearly as good as other albums in this lane.