Morgan Wallen performs in Britstol, Tenessee.
Courtesy | Wikimedia Commons
What’s better than Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping, 30-song album “Dangerous”? His much-anticipated, 36-song monstrosity “One Thing At a Time,” obviously.
No, not really. Despite setting an all-time record for most streamed country album in one day on its release day with a staggering 52 million streams, Wallen’s 2023 album can be summed up easily: some winners, a lotta fillers.
Wallen covers all of the bases with his 36 songs, ranging from undiluted Nashville to more individual pieces paying homage to some of the greats of old country music. This range once again solidifies Wallen’s universal appeal across a multitude of demographics. His albums always have something for all, as well as several across-the-board favorites. Country music aficionados and only-in-summer, radio-country listeners can for once agree on a music opinion, e.g. that “Chasin’ You” is actually a pretty good song.
Wallen stays consistent with the album, serving both catchy Nashville country and some older-sounding songs. He strategically dropped a three-song teaser one month out from the release date to keep excitement up. In the intervening month, “Last Night” topped the Hot Country charts and hit no. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100. While the song is undoubtedly the most catchy on the album, several other songs from the main release deserve recognition.
The album boasted several songs that, although popular, lacked the musical genius that Wallen is capable of. Closely following “Last Night” in streams is the title song, “One Thing at a Time.” Although catchy with smart lyrics, the song stops short after the feel-good element and is nothing earth-shattering. “Cowgirls” channels Diplo x Wallen with a distinctive, fun pop-country feel, but the chorus pretty blatantly rips off CoJo’s hit song “Long Live Cowgirls.” “I Wrote the Book” promised to serve a raw and autobiographical set of lyrics, but rambled on repetitively and unresolved for its three-minute duration. These songs fall into the distinctive set of Wallen’s decent, add-to-the-summer-playlist songs. Love them, next please.
Wallen’s talent is more subtly displayed in some of his less ostentatious pieces. “Man Made a Bar” featured country legend Eric Church and won out with unique lyrics whose creative composition is reminiscent of Church’s own distinctive flair for songwriting. Listeners found themselves under the lights in “98 Braves,” which, unlike the writer’s love life, connected with a fair ball as it swung for the fences. “Keith Whitley” did its namesake proud with a country love ballad which mourned the fleetingness of good things like love, whiskey, and the ‘80s country singer who passed on too soon.
Between the winners to the losers, one thing is evident: Wallen could have done in 15 songs what he did in 36. With the rise of Spotify and other streaming platforms, the high number of songs in an album is more lucrative because artists are paid based on an “album unit” of a certain number of songs. Re-releasing many previous singles allowed Wallen to make them relevant again and recycle their money-making ability as they are streamed countless times over with the rest of the album. While critique surfaced about the album’s similarity to Wallen’s previous work “Dangerous,” “One at a Time” was still enormously lucrative, and proved an intelligent way to monetize music in an ever changing music industry.
Lucrative or not, “One at a Time” succeeded in both pleasing old fans and gaining the Tennessee native new followers. Some might critique the amount of tracks dropped at once, but ultimately the album produced several winners, and fans are not disappointed.
