Thomas Luther "Luke" Bryan (born July 17, 1976) is a Country Music singer. Bryan got his foot in the door in 2004, co-writing the title track to Travis Tritt's My Honky Tonk History and Billy Currington's 2006 single "Good Directions". From there, Bryan had moderate success with his debut album I'll Stay Me, landing in the top 5 with its debut single "All My Friends Say".
Doin' My Thing was his breakout, producing a number 2 hit in "Do I" (co-written by Dave Haywood and Charles Kelley of Lady Antebellum) and his first chart-toppers, "Rain Is a Good Thing" and "Someone Else Calling You Baby". Tailgates & Tanlines, his third disk, brought him to number 4 with "Country Girl (Shake It for Me)", followed by three more number 1 hits: "I Don't Want This Night to End", "Drunk on You", and "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye". 2013's Crash My Party sent all six of its singles to the top of the country charts, including the oft-reviled "That's My Kind of Night". Kill the Lights sent "Kick the Dust Up" and "Strip It Down" to the top in rapid succession.
Besides his four albums, Luke has released seven digital extended plays with a spring break theme. Bryan is popular with the younger demographic, as many of his songs have a summer-y theme or feel (most notably "Drunk on You"). He's also one of the main Trope Makers of the "bro-country
" Sub-Genre that proliferated in the late 2010s.
In 2017, he was named as one of three judges for the upcoming 2018 ABC revival of American Idol, with Katy Perry and Lionel Richie.
Albums
- I'll Stay Me (2007)
- Doin' My Thing (2009)
- Tailgates & Tanlines (2011)
- Crash My Party (2013)
- Kill the Lights (2015)
- What Makes You Country (2017)
- Born Here Live Here Die Here (2020)
Tropes present in Bryan's work:
- Break-Up Song: "Rollar Coaster" focuses on one that occurs during a spring break vacation.
- Broken Win/Loss Streak: His 2008 single "Country Man" began a streak of 29 consecutive top 10 singles on the Billboard country charts. The streak was ended in 2022 by the #21-peaking single "Up".
- When "What Makes You Country" peaked at #2 in 2019, it became his first single to miss number one on either country chart since "Country Girl (Shake It for Me)" peaked at #4 in 2011.
- Cool Car: the "big black jacked up truck" with a "diamond plate tailgate" in "That's My Kind Of Night"
- Dead Sparks: "Do I":Baby, what are we becoming
It feels just like we're always running
Rolling through the motions everyday
I could lean in to hold you, or act like I don't even know you
Seems like you could care less either way
What happened to that girl I used to know
I just want us back to the way we were before - Distracted by the Sexy: "I Don't Want this Night to End": "I don't know what road we're on / Or where we've been / From staring at you, girl".
- Early-Bird Cameo: Before having any hits of his own, he co-wrote the title track of Travis Tritt's 2004 album My Honky Tonk History and Billy Currington's 2006 single "Good Directions".
- Early-Installment Weirdness: I'll Stay Me and to a slightly lesser extent Doin' My Thing have a more pronounced traditional country influence, as opposed to the more pop-rock influenced sound from his third album onward.
- Exhort the Disc Jockey Song: "Play it Again", In-Universe with a radio DJ.
- Gay Aesop: "Most People Are Good" hints at this with "I believe you love who you love".
- Grief Song: "Drink a Beer" has the narrator lamenting a friend's death by sitting on the edge of a pier that they used to fish on together and drinking a beer.
- Happy Rain: "Rain Is a Good Thing," in which the narrator lists off all the positives of the rain—namely that it waters the crops that make the alcohol that help put his Love Interest in the mood.
- Intercourse with You: "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye". It doesn't get blatant until the line "Take off your leavin' dress/Let's do what we do best."
- List Song: "Most People Are Good" is full of personal beliefs that the narrator holds, such as "I believe most people are good / And most mamas oughta qualify for sainthood".
- Love Is a Drug: "Drunk on You," in which the narrator spending a summer evening with his Love Interest is the "best buzz [he's] ever gonna find," and he's drunk on her and "high on summertime."
- Love Nostalgia Song:
- "Roller Coaster" recalls a spring break fling with a girl in Panama City.
- "Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset" recalls a summertime love that the narrator had while hired to paint a house for the lover's father.
- Master of the Mixed Message: "Games," in which the cat-and-mouse game is mutual, but the narrator is getting sick of the ambiguity.
- Rhyming with Itself: "Kick the Dust Up" repeatedly rhymes "up" with "up."
- Sexiness Score: "Drunk On You" compliments the Love Interest with "If you ain't a ten, you're a nine point nine."
- Shout-Out: "That's My Kind of Night"'s mixtape has "a little Conway, a little T-Pain."
- Stuffy Old Songs About the Buttocks: "Country Girl (Shake It for Me)".
- Telephone Song: "Light It Up" has him constantly checking his phone for a message from his woman after a fight.
- Totally Radical: "Country Man" name-drops Hoobastank, and "That's My Kind of Night" mentions making it rain.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: "All My Friends Say" opens with the narrator waking up in a rocking chair, holding a beer, and being unable to remember how he got there. He calls around to his buddies, and finds out he started "shooting doubles" when his ex walked into the club the previous night, determined to show how over he was, and it got a little crazy.
