Note: Today’s review comes to you by request of a close friend who actually hates me. I could have gone my entire life without listening to “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16,” or even knowing it existed. But this is an objective critique, not a roast.* So with teeth clenched and a bottle of wine freshly uncorked, let’s get to work.
Keith Urban’s “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16” (or as I’m going to call it herein, “John Cubed”), is the strangest self-aggrandizing and groupthinky piece of music I have heard since the North Korean national anthem. But while it is clearly intended as a celebration of the culture that accompanies country music, it falls short emotionally, instead exposing a commercial titan of the industry who still doesn’t fully understand the genre he attempts to dominate, much less the nation with which he wants to assimilate. Continue reading