Review Summary: An inessential hits collection that leaves money on the table.
Dustin Lynch is the ultimate guilty pleasure among the crop of modern country male vocalists, at least the ones that sing like they have a mouth full of fiberglass. Though his voice has become less distinct and less baritone as he's pursued more pop-oriented material, he's a likable persona as an artist. He doesn't come across as sleazy like many of the male solo acts of the day; you can grab a beer with him and watch the game without feeling unsafe. Riding the bro-country wave of the 2010s, he's put together a fairly respectable career numbers-wise. He's put a dozen top ten hits on the
Billboard country tallies, including a multi-platinum sellers that enjoyed trips to the upper half of the Hot 100. Fourteen years since he first hit the scene with his self-titled debut, he's now put out his first hits package, and it would be way more enjoyable if its song selection weren't so puzzling.
Setlist Staples is a fitting name for the collection. It's loaded with almost every big hit that Lynch has yielded in his career. Though if you look at his
Billboard country chart record, you'll notice only nine of them have actually gone to #1, despite there being ten tracks here. Just about everything you'd need to represent him is here. His quintuple-platinum smash "Small Town Boy," the infectious "Mind Reader" and the chilled-out "Good Girl" are all here. But something's missing: his breakthrough 2012 debut single "Cowboys and Angels." Not only does it remain arguably his most popular work, it's undoubtedly his finest on record, and Lynch himself has even declared it his favorite song to play live. For a compilation entitled
Setlist Staples, it seems strange to not include it. It can't be because it didn't go to #1, because one of the songs here, 2023's "Stars Like Confetti" didn't do so either! I enjoy (in varying degrees) most of the songs here, and would otherwise have been happy to revisit them, but not including his obvious career song is just wrong. That alone causes me to dock points. I was going to go to bat for ya, Dustin, but you had to drop the ball. That ten-gallon hat you wear must be squeezing your frontal lobe out of functionality.
