Two Fridays ago, the Zac Brown Band released their sixth studio album, The Owl, acquiring almost as many producers as it does tracks. In an age where casual listeners will often answer the question of what kind of music they listen to with, “I don’t know, just not Country,” well, this album may serve them right. But is it really Country?
The band took on a pretty drastic musical transition, almost ‘Taylor Swift-style,’ with their conforming to the idioms of Pop. While they still remained somewhat true to their country roots, Zac Brown Band incorporated some noticeably cliche, formulaic infusions of pop production into their new LP, officially making their stand into the nauseating ‘subgenre’ that is “Electro-Country.” The Owl makes Garth Brooks look like Johnny Cash, and now, Country’s more dead than that “man in Reno.”
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