Rating:
Genre:
Country
Release Date: 03/22/2005
It's not entirely a coincidence that
Trace Adkins sounds like a streamlined
Toby Keith on his sixth album,
Songs About Me, since
Keith was the biggest
country star of the 2000s, or at least the biggest star who shares
Adkins' low, deep voice and taste for
traditional country. But it's not entirely fair to peg
Adkins as a
Keith wannabe, either, since
Trace has been around as long as
Toby, and has mined a similar
neo-traditionalist vein for just as long. Still,
Songs About Me has the self-conscious air of a Nashville studio product, one that's tailored to a specific sensibility and sound -- one that's not far removed from either
Adkins' previous work or
Keith's current music, but still feels like it was made with the rough, ready, red-state mentality of the mid-2000s in mind. This sober professionalism has its drawbacks -- everything from the production to the lyrics is a little too studied, and it can't help but pale in comparison to
Keith's bawdy, robust redneck anthems -- but it also has its advantages, particularly because
Adkins is an assured, professional singer who can sell this material even when it's at its most generic. That he can't quite make it transcend the generic is nothing to fault him for -- if he had better songs, a livelier setting, or a looser production, he might have been able to make this take off -- and even if
Songs About Me isn't much more than a solid piece of craftsmanship, it's quite enjoyable at that level.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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