In August, Eric Church declared HARDY “one of the greatest songwriters Nashville has.” That’s high praise coming from a singer-songwriter who almost everyone in Music City would declare the same. For sure, in less than a decade, the talented HARDY has become a top go-to songwriter in Nashville, responsible for co-writing great songs for other artists that stand out among the best cuts in their catalogs, including “God’s Country” for Blake Shelton and “Sand in My Boots” and “I’m a Little Crazy” for Morgan Wallen. HARDY, who just headlined Madison Square Garden for the first time, has also written songs for himself that have resonated greatly for their emotional heft, among them “Wait in the Truck” (featuring Lainey Wilson) and “Give Heaven Some Hell.” For Country! Country!, HARDY’s first album since rock album, Quit!! a year and a half ago, as the title indicates he leans heavily into his country country roots growing up in Philadelphia, Mississippi (population: 6,900). The album celebrates his tremendous love for what it means to be raised hunting and fishing and away from city life, which he seems to thoroughly disdain. As he celebrates Hank, George, Waylon and other good old boys, his slavish, unwavering devotion to country comes more through the often-heavy-handed lyrical content than the musical styles: HARDY is more of the hunting-fishing-outdoorsy country purist rather than the kind that sings about the girl in cutoffs in the front seat of the truck that dominated the Bro Country movement. Many of the songs mix country with a soft pop tilt or a rock sheen, though there are enough tunes here that bring the twang. HARDY could have just as easily called the album Death! Death! His other obsession on the album is dying, and sometimes he even combines the two subjects in the same song. He jokes about it in album closer, “Everybody Dies.” At 20 tracks, the Joey Moi-produced album occasionally feels overstuffed and redundant, especially when he takes the same topic, as with “Gun to My Head” and the far superior “Take the Country and Run” and drives it into the ground. But for every song that feels like it could be cut, there’s a tune that touches a nerve, like “Goodbye,” or that takes a surprising twist on a topic such as “I’d Go Crazy Too.” Vocally, he’s never sounded better, especially when he takes on his haters on the humorous and pointed “Y’all Need Jesus,” evangelizes country life on “Favorite Country Song,” or writes his own eulogy on “Bottomland.” Below is an early take on Country! Country! “Keep It Country” Trending on Billboard if ( !window.pmc.harmony?.isEventAdScheduledTime() ) { pmcCnx.cmd.push(function() { pmcCnx({ settings: { plugins: { pmcAtlasMG: { iabPlcmt: 2, } } }, playerId: ‘4057afa6-846b-4276-bc63-a9cf3a8aa1ed’, playlistId: ‘b7dab6e5-7a62-4df1-b1f4-3cfa99eea709’, }).render(«connatix_contextual_player_div»); }); } else { // This should only be get called when page cache is not cleared and it’s event time. window.pmc.harmony?.switchToHarmonyPlayer(); } Like a zealot for his cause, HARDY tells the folks back home, he’ll make his return but for now he’s on a mission to spread their way of life to folks in the big city. He’s traded in dirt roads for city lights, but it’s temporary and hopefully he can make some converts along the way. “I’m just singing in the lights/ Tryna keep this way of life alive and I’ll be back I swear/ ‘Til then I’ll keep it country ‘round here.” “Bro Country” (feat. Ernest) Trending on Billboard if ( !window.pmc.harmony?.isEventAdScheduledTime() ) { pmcCnx.cmd.push(function() { pmcCnx({ settings: { plugins: { pmcAtlasMG: { iabPlcmt: 2, } } }, playerId: ‘4057afa6-846b-4276-bc63-a9cf3a8aa1ed’, playlistId: ‘b7dab6e5-7a62-4df1-b1f4-3cfa99eea709’, }).render(«connatix_contextual_player_div»); }); } else { // This should only be get called when page cache is not cleared and it’s event time. window.pmc.harmony?.switchToHarmonyPlayer(); } This is not your father’s Bro Country anymore. HARDY, in the album’s twangiest song, looks back at the Bro Country movement that acts like Florida Georgia Line ushered in more than a decade ago, and gives it slight shade for moving country away from staples like Hank, George, etc. He admits, “I’ve been that drunk redneck signing your songs,” but is happy to be part of the next generation that has helped bring it back to basics. Nice plug for “Billboard Country Top 10” in the lyrics. Thanks! “Buck on the Wall” Trending on Billboard if ( !window.pmc.harmony?.isEventAdScheduledTime() ) { pmcCnx.cmd.push(function() { pmcCnx({ settings: { plugins: { pmcAtlasMG: { iabPlcmt: 2, } } }, playerId: ‘4057afa6-846b-4276-bc63-a9cf3a8aa1ed’, playlistId: ‘b7dab6e5-7a62-4df1-b1f4-3cfa99eea709’, }).render(«connatix_contextual_player_div»); }); } else { // This should only be get called when page cache is not cleared and it’s event time. window.pmc.harmony?.switchToHarmonyPlayer(); } A driving nostalgic look at the cabin his grandfather built adorned with a buck mounted on the wall his grandfather killed. His grandfather is dead (and obviously so is the deer), but HARDY’s determined to kill a buck so there’s a matching set, though it destroys him that his grandfather won’t be there to hunt with him. Will surely appeal to generations of hunters. “Gun to My Head” Trending on Billboard if ( !window.pmc.harmony?.isEventAdScheduledTime() ) { pmcCnx.cmd.push(function() { pmcCnx({ settings: { plugins: { pmcAtlasMG: { iabPlcmt: 2, } } }, playerId: ‘4057afa6-846b-4276-bc63-a9cf3a8aa1ed’, playlistId: ‘b7dab6e5-7a62-4df1-b1f4-3cfa99eea709’, }).render(«connatix_contextual_player_div»); }); } else { // This should only be get called when page cache is not cleared and it’s event time. window.pmc.harmony?.switchToHarmonyPlayer(); } HARDY appreciates the country life, as he stresses over and over on this track that sounds like it could have been recorded by Lynyrd Skynyrd. But on “Gun to My Head,” he’s just getting boorish. Give him the sounds of the whippoorwills over the sights of the big city. Even if someone puts a gun to his head, he won’t give up the country and, as he sings, “The only way I’m goin’/ Is in boots in the back of a hearse.” I don’t know who’s making HARDY feel like it’s an either/or proposition, but we get it, pal. By the time you get to this track, which is No. 16 on the album, you feel like you’ve been hit over
