Mark Wills – “Days of Thunder”
This is a boring, diluted remake of “Nineteen Somethin’.” It’s also a cut from the album Wills recorded for Clint Black’s Equity Music Group, and there’s some history here: Spend My Time, Black’s first release for his independent label, was the safest, most watered-down work of his career. Hopefully this song isn’t representative of the kind of material that will be on Wills’ forthcoming album. Hat-acts like Wills who got lost in the nineties shuffle ought to use their indy debuts as an opportunity to experiment with interesting music that might allow them to leave some kind of artistic footprint.
Listen: Mark Wills – “Days of Thunder”
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Trackback URI for this postMay 21, 2007
[...] and the desperation that characterizes the best renditions of this song. In an earlier review I criticized Mark Wills for the lack of creativity in his indie label debut, but Confederate Railroad was never a [...]
5 Comments
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May 10, 2007 at 8:37 am Permalink
Woo hoo! This is a pet rant topic of mine. It’s my theory that an artist moving from a major to an independent label typically sees two possible directions in which to go:
1.) Use your newfound freedom to do whatever you like, knowing it won’t get radio play; or
2.) Concoct something so drearily predictable that country radio might play it even though you’re on an indie and don’t have a lot of coke-and-whore money to throw at it.
Here’s a clue: You may as well go for #1, because #2 never works. Radio didn’t go near “Spend My Time” even though it was, as Matt quite rightly calls it, “the safest, most watered-down work of his career.” If Clint had made something like “D’Lectrified” with his new indie latitude, at least it could have gotten some critical kudos and word of mouth.
May 10, 2007 at 10:49 am Permalink
Wait…since when is Mark Wills a “hat-act” ???
May 10, 2007 at 6:50 pm Permalink
Jim, I got a little caught up in my desire to make a larger point about some of the members of his generation. The moniker is more applicable to some of his contemporaries than Wills himself, but it’s not far from the truth.
May 24, 2007 at 8:32 pm Permalink
Um…Mark Wills is a great artist with a greater potential than what he’s been able to demonstrate. No the new single isn’t is strongest performance to date…I’ll give you that. I do plan support the new song however, and hope that by some slight chance radio will give it a chance. I am soo sick and tired of good artists not being played and good music going unheard on the radio because everyone is looking for the next new talent and leaving quality (in several cases, but not all) behind. It’s been frustrating when I call all my local radio stations to request “current singles” and they down right refuse to add them to the playlist. How are people supposed to request music they never hear????
December 21, 2007 at 9:48 am Permalink
MARK, I THINK U R SO HOT! I HOPE U COME BACK TO HEDGESVILLE HIGH SCHOOL AGIAN.
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