MY LIFE’S BEEN A COUNTRY SONG - CHRIS CABLE
The fourth studio album by talented Nashville hunk Chris Cagle starts strong and rhythmic: heartland country-rocker (and current chart hit) parsing several competing definitions of the adjective “gone”; funny talking-blues-inspired country-rocker about a barfly who requests everything but love songs; boy-is-back-in-town country-rocker funky enough to pass for Big & Rich. Beyond that, the power ballads build up with sufficient drama, and there’s more catchy cleverness — particularly “Little Sundress,” where Cagle admires a young lady’s apparel selection, “golden Tropicana tan” and reggae dance moves. The nostalgic number where a C-and-D student falls for a girl who gets A’s and B’s as her daddy stands in the way is sweet, too. The album slacks toward the end (pandering name-drops of older country classics whose glory doesn’t rub off as intended; a final dollop of sensitive-male mush) but by then, Cagle has already reeled you in.
