George Ducas – “Walk Through This World”

Songwriters: George Ducas and David Lee Murphy.

A lot has changed in country music since George Ducas charted his sole top ten single in 1994. Traditional stalwarts Travis Tritt, the Judds, Clint Black and Tanya Tucker headlined the Super Bowl halftime show. Vince Gill didn’t just host the CMAs, he racked up Male Vocalist and Entertainer of the Year honors. Heck, even Joe Diffie was still getting airplay.

We could wax unpoetic for days on the current state of country music and its sickened aesthetic and groomed, well-packaged artists–but for better or worse, Ducas is keeping pace with this new standard with his latest single, “Walk Through This World.”

It’s a different sound for the singer/songwriter, whose two previous studio albums, George Ducas and Where I Stand, produced solid, honky tonkin’ songs in the mid-90s that spoke to both his Texas and California roots. As his first release with WhiteStar Nashville, after bouncing between Liberty and Capitol Records, “Walk Through This World” banks on the success of recent artists’ pleasantly bland lyrics and agreeable instrumentation.

A declaration of everlasting love that shares none of the sincerity of George Jones’ 1967 song of a similar name, “Walk Through This World” is missing is the edgy imagery of Ducas’ “Lipstick Promises,” which made it to #9 on the Billboard charts, and the interesting guitar riffs that accented his Dwight Yoakam-infused “Hello Cruel World.”

It’s not that Ducas sounds bad on this song, but the forgettable material is a disappointing change of pace, especially considering that Ducas and co-writer David Lee Murphy have proven themselves as apt storytellers; Ducas’ Sara Evans hit “Real Fine Place to Start,” Murphy’s “Dust on the Bottle” and the pair’s co-penned “Always the Love Songs” (for the Eli Young Band) all make use of clear, vivid imagery and strong narrative threads.

That’s not the case here, where lyrics like “I don’t want to think/’Bout where I might be/Without you, it’s way too frightening,” rehash a storyline that’s been told before and better in Trisha Yearwood’s and Leann Rimes’ versions of “How Do I Live” and Alan Jackson’s “Had It Not Been You.”

“Walk Through This World” fails to specify any memorable relationship milestones, and relies too heavily on generic pronouns; phrases such as “moments like this,” “these times,” and “this is what it’s supposed to feel like” beg the questions: Moments like what? What times?

The first single off his upcoming album Twang Thang (an apparent pitch to today’s popular hick-hop references like “Hollerback” and “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk”), “Walk Through This Word” is just the type of song that could fare well on popular country radio–which is good for Ducas and his label, though not so much for fans of his original sound.

Listen: George Ducas on mySpace