Tag: Justin Moore

Thursday Thoughts with the Boots & Whiskey Podcast

Hey everyone!  Welcome back to another Thursday Thoughts here with the Boots & Whiskey Podcast.  As I am sure you are well aware of by now, this week we had JR the Handler on our show.  For those of you who don’t know who JR is he is the tour manager for Justin Moore and the co-host of the Justin Moore Podcast.  It was a great conversation if you haven’t heard it yet, go listen to it after reading this article.

Naturally we are going to count down the Top 10 Best Justin Moore Songs to date.  Like all our lists, many have been left off, many could be in different places on the list, but at the end of the day, this is what I think…let me know what you think!

10 – We Didn’t Have Much

This song is an absolute classic.  It tells an incredible story that I think many of us can relate too.  I know I sure as hell can relate to this.  As a kid, we weren’t wealthy by any stretch.  We were a pay check to pay check family, but I always had what I needed.  I definitely had it all and we didn’t have much.

9 – Kinda Don’t Care

I love the sentiment of this song.  The idea of, well damn I have been doing all this shit I don’t want to do because I have to and you get the moment where you just don’t give a shit and do what you want to do.  Regardless of what you do, good or bad it doesn’t matter and you don’t care.  As adults with kids and jobs and such, I am sure we can all relate, right? 

8 – You Look Like I Need a Drink 

Damn, another JM classic right here.  We’ve all been here right?  That moment you’re trying to break up with someone or tell someone something you maybe don’t want too cause it’s going to hurt their feelings.  And all you can think is “You look like I need a drink.”  When you can sense bad news is coming and you just need that drink to ease whatever is about to come.

7 – With A Woman You Love

Well hell, this is my song to my wife for sure.  It took me a long time to get this one folks.  It’s not always perfect and it’s not always easy, but forever with her won’t be long enough that’s for sure.

6 – Bait a Hook

So I love this song even though the type of guy JM sings about in this song is not me, in the slightest.  I am maybe the most worthless male on the planet.  I own it.  It is what is is.  I am terrible at fishing; I don’t own a truck (yet) and can barely change a fucking tire.  BUT I think all of these things are important to know in life and well I don’t care that I am 35, I am learning still dammit! HAHA.  In today’s climate it’s important for men to strive to be men. 

5 – If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away 

This song hits me right in the feels.  I am sure it hits many of you too.  We all have those people we miss who have passed on.  This is on the list to the ones I miss and love.  Wish I could talk to ya’ll again.

4 – Airport Bar

This is just a fun ass song.  Nothing more, nothing less.  I love deep album cuts and I feel that this song is one of those for sure.

3 – Til My Last Day

This song needs no explanation, right?  Especially after number 7

2 – Jesus and Jack Daniels

I guess this is another deep track off the same album.  Definitley one of my favorite country songs of all time.  The imagery and story of this song is absolutely incredible and I am sure many can relate.  Turn this one up! 

1 – The One’s That Didn’t Make It Back Home 

This….this song is the song that made my oldest son fall in love with JM.  This song still makes me cry every time it comes on.  I don’t care how many times I hear it, I don’t care how old it is now, every time it comes on, the hair on my arms stands and I can feel the rush of grief come over me.  This may sound like terrible feelings but I assure you they aren’t.  It reminds me every time of the men and women and families who sacrifice so much for all of us here in this beautiful country of ours.  This song is for you.

Damn this was a hard list.  If I must say, my all time favorite album from JM and really in country music over the last ten plus years has to be ‘Late Nights and Longnecks’.  To me, every song on that album is a hit or at least should be.  I can’t put that album on and not listen to it straight through without skipping a single song.  

I missed some great songs on this list as well like one of my favorites ‘Hank It’.  It’s one of the best songs ever in honor of Bosephus himself.  

Cheers ya’ll

Thank you all for reading along and listening to the show.  Check us out on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, iHeart Radio, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, Twitter all of the above.  And check out our website at http://www.bootsandwhiskeyentertainment.com

Justin Moore and his cohost JR the Handler just dropped the biggest “Justin Moore Podcast” yet for personal reasons. At exactly 30 minutes, JR gives us a little shout-out and talks about an article I wrote ranking all of Justin Moore’s albums, which can be found here. The entire podcast will be posted below, and it’s worth a listen.

I also want to personally thank JR for being so supportive of our little website. We have had many little conversations on social media, and it has really been a driving force and motivation for me to keep going and expanding. None of the stuff we are trying to do here is easy. You don’t get a following overnight unless you have deep pockets, which we don’t, but when someone like JR talks about what you are doing, it makes you realize you are on the right track. As of the time I am writing this article, I have about 450 social media followers, which is less than the number of people who live in most country artists’ small towns, but just having that one person saying your name to thousands of country music fans is wild.

After this colossal thing happened, the duo went a step further and announced “Straight Outta the Country,” a new album. The album will be dropping on April 23rd and will feature eight tracks, including the single “We Didn’t Have Much.” At first, eight tracks don’t seem overwhelming, and honestly, I was a little disappointed that the album would be so short. However, Justin then dropped a little nugget that these eight songs might not be the only songs we will be getting this year. If we get, say, sixteen Justin Moore songs throughout 2021, that would be great. From the outside looking in, it seems like the covid pandemic didn’t affect when the new album dropped because he wasn’t due for one last year. However, I can’t help but feel a little bit frustrated because many other artists delayed albums till this year, which will saturate the market a little bit. Still, I am super pumped for the new music, and if it’s half as good as the last album, we are in for a treat.

Double albums seem to the trend right now, and the fact that Justin Moore is hopping on the trend solidifies that. Although Moore doesn’t really call it a double album or confirm it is a double album, it seems likely that this will be the case. Obviously, Morgan Wallen has shown that a double album can work. He released thirty songs back in January. Going into April, it is still the top-selling album on the planet. We have already seen Thomas Rhett announce “Country Again (Side A),” and last year, Granger Smith dropped “Country Things” in two parts. Chris Young has a double album coming as well. Now Justin Moore might be doing it next. I like this trend; when we get an album from a favorite artist, there comes a sadness level, knowing this might be it for a few years. However, in an era where we stream music instead of buying physical copies, why not release fewer songs every few months? The only thing that really screws this up is radio because it takes almost a year for a lot of songs to go number one, but besides that, I think this would be awesome.

So that was my morning. When you listen to a podcast, and you hear your own website’s name gets mentioned without warning, it’s a little bit of a pleasant surprise. Thank you, Justin Moore and JR, for the support, and hopefully, we can keep growing this thing to the level I believe it can reach! Also, remember, “Straight Outta the Country” is coming on April 23rd!

Ranking your favorite artists best albums feels like ranking your kids. Yes, you love them all and you tell people you love them all, but deep down everyone knows you love one more than the other. To be fair to “Kinda Don’t Care” I would rather listen to that one repeat than any album by Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, or Eric Church, which is saying a lot. However not every album is created equal, and not everyone has the same purpose. As a result they all have different themes, sounds, and just overall music. With all that being said, here are the Justin Moore albums rankings.

5. Kinda Don’t Care

It’s hard to say that I didn’t like a Justin Moore album, but “Kinda Don’t Care” is the closest to that I can get. It features by far my least favorite Justin Moore song, “Put Me In a Box,” and many poppy songs. Moore was going through a rough patch in his career before releasing this record. Someone in his record label made a bad decision to have him release “Home Sweet Home” as his single, a song that was part of a Montley Crue tribute album with other various artists. The song didn’t do very well, and peaked somewhere in the twenties. They then went back to a song off “Off the Beaten Path” after releasing two singles prior to “Home Sweet Home” off the album. It created an awkward lack of momentum for “This Kinda Town” which wasn’t a bad song, but it seemed destined to die high on the charts.

The label took a little  break after “Kinda Town” topped off from releasing new music, but finally “You Look Like I Need a Drink,” dropped, and started a revival to Moore’s career. Despite the album doing its purpose of revitalizing some momentum for Moore, this album missed the mark to his true fans. “Somebody Else Will” is a number one hit that is probably Moore’s most pop single, and songs like “Between You and Me” are similar. Songs like “Kinda Don’t Care,” “Hell on a Highway,” “More Middle Fingers,” and “Pickup Lines” save the album, though, and make it worth listening to. When I saw Justin Moore during the “Don’t Care” era of his career, it was only a few months after it was released, and he was very down on the record. It makes it very hard to like something that the creator himself isn’t proud of. The album definitely served its purpose, but it is an experiment that I can’t see Moore ever coming close to again. 

4. Justin Moore

Moore’s debut album from way back in 2009, Justin Moore got off to a great start in his career. The self-titled album featured “Small Town USA” Moore’s first number 1 and “Backwoods,” one of my favorite bonfire jam songs. The album goes for all of the emotions, ranging from “I Could Kick Your Ass,” a song that features Moore, who is only 5’7″ fighting a guy for trying to steal his girl, to “Grandpa,” a song about how he looks up to his grandpa and everything that he does. If I didn’t have to put numbers next to the albums, the first three would be 1A, 1B, and 1C, with this album being 2.

Overall, I liked this album, but I felt that his music got a little better as Moore grew up and matured. Songs that hurt the album include Moore’s debut single “Back That Thing Up” which felt so cheesy that I don’t even think a bro country artist would record it. A common theme of being proud of where he is from shines thorugh in the album with, “How I Got to Be This Way”, “Small Town USA”, “Good Ole American Way” and “The Only Place That I Call Home” all referencing this. Much like “Kinda Don’t Care” this album served its purpose. It got Moore’s career off the ground, and produced a few quality songs as well.

3. Off the Beaten Path

An album that a lot of people didn’t like as much, this was my introduction to Justin Moore. A more guitar-heavy follow-up to “Outlaws Like Me,” this album featured the hit songs “Point at You” and “Lettin the Night Roll.” It did have the Moore put another super tacky song “I’d Want It to Be Yours,” on it, which is probably the lowest point of the album. On the other hand the album also had “For Some Ol’ Redneck Reason,” featuring Charlie Daniels, a fantastic song.

The album hits a lot on my kind of music, rock country songs that I can jam to instead of slower stuff. However for all the heavy guitar, it has a few songs that slow the album don’t. “One Dirt Road” and the previously mentioned “This Kind of Town” are two examples of this. This album got done a little bit dirty being interrupted by “Home Sweet Home” and I think that poor decision will always linger when thinking about this album. However overall it is a solid record.

2. Outlaws Like Me

His sophomore album, Justin Moore, hit this record really hard and had some smash songs. The song features my all-time all-genre favorite song, “Bait a Hook,” which I wrote this article about. It also has hit “If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away,” “Til My Last Day,” plus songs Moore still does live to this day like “Flyin’ Down a Back Road” and “Bed of My Chevy.” I think if you were to ask Moore what his favorite album ever was, “Outlaws Like Me” would be the one. 

I don’t want to spoil the number one record, but I think that Moore was listening to this album on repeat when writing that one. The biggest danger of this album in my opinion is that it seems like it was such a high for Moore, that he is always going to try to top it. While this is a high point in his career, I hope that he realizes that he shouldn’t try to top it, because some of the success he had with it can’t be topped. I think his best move would be to match the success, and although I’m not sure how the numbers shake out, he did that on the final album on the list.

1. Late Nights and Longnecks

Coming off the heels of “Kinda Don’t Care,” Justin Moore essentially decided that he was happy with all of his past success and wanted to make an album he was truly proud of hell or highwater.  Something tells me that he realized he sold out a little bit and realized he would rather make a good product than chase success with tacky money grab songs. I saw him in concert during the “Don’t Care” phase of his career. He essentially said that he hated the album and wanted to make a 90’s country album. He did just that on “Late Night and Longnecks,” a fantastic album that mixes his southern rock influences with Alan Jackson and George Strait’s sounds. The album was way too short, with only ten songs and 34 minutes, but he put ten great songs on an album instead of a more extended album with a few filler songs.

Honestly though, go through the album and tell me where the weak spot is. I think the “critics” would point to “Small Town Street Cred” but in my opinion that is a song that you love if you lived it. I don’t usually likes songs such as “My Boy” because I don’t have kids, but even that song I love. The album produced two number one hits, and if Moore’s music charted as fast as Luke Bryans, I think the majority of the songs on the album could’ve been radio hits. He has teased that his next album featuring “We Didn’t Have Much” will be even better, so we will see.