Line #9 YMMV/BradPaisley


1	* BrokenBase:
2	** ''Play'' is either a fun diversion for Brad to show off his guitar chops like never before, or self-indulgent noodling that had no reason to exist.
3	** ''Wheelhouse'' seems to be a polarizing album: some critics and fans think that it's great, others think it's a bloated mess that tries way too hard to be "different" from his previous albums. ''Especially'' the track "Accidental Racist".
4	** Depending on who you ask, "Then" is either one of his best or worst songs. It's either an emotional ballad, or a boring ClicheStorm.
5	* ClicheStorm:
6	** "Then": "And now you're my whole life / Now you're my whole world / And I just can't believe the way I feel about you, girl"… etc. etc.
7	** "Water" is rather cliché heavy too. Wet t-shirt contests and skinny dipping ceased to be titillating ages ago.
8	* CriticalDissonance: His albums still get generally high marks across the board. However, many fans feel that he's been phoning it in since about ''5th Gear'' onward — main criticisms include "boring lyrics" ("Then"), "failed attempts at humor" ("Ticks", "Water", "Camouflage", "I'm Still a Guy"), and "uninspired singing" (his voice started getting a lot flatter after ''Time Well Wasted''). This may finally be catching up with him, as in late 2011-early 2012, "Camouflage" became his first song since 2000 to miss the top 10. There are however still many fans of the later music, especially with Brad's singles in '''Franchise/Cars'' movies.
9	* DontShootTheMessage: "Accidental Racist" provoked considerable backlash at the clumsy handling of a complex topic -- namely, the lingering effects and divides from America's nasty history of slavery and racial segregation. While it is a very serious message which could work well, neither Brad Paisley or Music/LLCoolJ did a good job addressing it.
10	* {{Glurge}}: "This Is Country Music." Rule of thumb, avoid country songs that try to Make a Point about country songs.
11	* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: A few. [[HappilyAdopted "He Didn't Have to Be"]] is still arguably the best, but "Letter to Me" and "Last Time for Everything" work too.
12	** Several of his "being open-minded is good" songs ([[RunningGag except "Accidental Racist"]]) can be touching, particularly for people who live in rural America but can't quite fit in there: "Welcome to the Future," "American Saturday Night," "Southern Comfort Zone," etc.
13	* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: Starting with "When I Get Where I'm Going" and ending with "Then," Brad scored ''ten'' consecutive #1 hits on the ''Billboard'' country charts, the longest such streak by a country music artist in ages until Music/BlakeShelton broke it.
14	* {{Narm}}: "Accidental Racist." Part of the reason for the entry below.
15	* OvershadowedByControversy: ''Wheelhouse'' had two #2 hits on the country charts, but it will likely be remembered almost entirely as "the album with 'Accidental Racist' on it".
16	* SeasonalRot: This began to set in with either ''Time Well Wasted'' or ''5th Gear'', [[BrokenBase depending on who you ask]]. Things began to get better with ''Moonshine in the Trunk'', and ''Love and War'' was acclaimed as a return to form.
17	* SignatureSong: "Find Yourself" or "Collision of Worlds" due to ''Franchise/Cars'' movies. And "Whiskey Lullaby'' or "Remind Me" due to collabs.
18	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece:
19	** "Who Needs Pictures" is about the narrator finding a roll of film and pondering developing it before stating "Who needs pictures with a memory like mine". Only a few years later those pictures would be on a digital camera (which could still be justified if he has no immediate means of reading the memory card), and more contemporarily they'd be instantly accessible on any smartphone.
20	** A minor example. When "Online" came out, everyone had a Website/MySpace, so he mentioned it. He now changes the line to "Go check out my Website/{{Facebook}} page" when he sings it live.
21	* ValuesDissonance: "Ticks", which uses "I'd like to check you for ticks" as a pickup line:
22	-->'''Paisley''': “Working out here on the farm, I literally have to check for ticks every time I come in from the woods or the fields. Now, if a young guy who lives in the country were to take a girl into the woods for any reason, it would totally cross his mind that she’s going to have to check for ticks when they come back out. So it seems that an enterprising guy would at least consider that he could offer to check for her.”
23	* WinBackTheCrowd: After the divisive ''Wheelhouse'' album, Paisley seems to have gotten back into critics' good graces with ''Moonshine in the Trunk''.

Context YMMV / BradPaisley