Scotty McCreery Clear As Day Album Review

Scotty McCreery’s Debut Album Is A Good Start.

As I am sure most of you have noticed by now, I have not been the biggest supporter of Scotty McCreery. I was unimpressed by his debut single “I Love You This Big“, and I was prepared to dislike his debut album, Clear As Day. I am happy to report however, that Scotty has surprised me.

It really is rare for an artist these days to release a complete concept album. Most of the releases we see now are just albums full of “singles”. While Clear As Day certainly qualifies as the latter, I still think that these singles collectively really do have a represent a common theme. This theme can be easily summed up in one word: “youth”. I was worried about this album in many ways because of Scotty’s age. When he entered American Idol he was 16, and by the time he won he was still only 17. I was concerned that this would have a limiting effect on his options as far as content was concerned. However, the songs chosen for this album all deal with stories and concepts that really seem to be representative of Scotty and his life experiences. Instead of trying to make Scotty seem older than his years, he and his team carefully chose songs which embrace his youth. This really helps to provide depth to the individual tracks and the album as a whole. Essentially, I believe that Scotty believes what he’s singing about, and this will carry the album further than it would have gone otherwise.

Also, there is a really nice variety in pace on this album. There are upbeat songs appropriate for a young guy like “Out of Summertime“, “Water Tower Town“, “Better Than That“, “Write My Number On Your Hand“, and “You Make That Look Good“. At the same time there are more sentimental, heart-string strumming songs like “Clear As Day” and “Back On The Ground” and “That Old King James“.

The slower sentimental songs are just as believable as the faster songs even though the content is more serious. They still contain references to family and memories that really seem to be a part of Scotty’s life. The best of these slower songs is probably “Back On The Ground” because it tells the story of a young man coming home again to see his Momma, and it really seems to be a parallel of Scotty’s experiences with success on American Idol and coming home after all that.

The most poignant moment on the album probably comes at the end of the title track “Clear As Day” when it resolves into a surprising conclusion which changes the entire meaning of the song you just spent 3 minutes and 58 seconds listening to (Don’t worry, I won’t give it away!).

My favorite song on the album has to be “You Make That Look Good“. It is an adorable song, and it definitely has potential to be a crowd favorite at live performances.

Overall, this really is a good start for Scotty. I don’t think that the quality level is high enough that he is capable of taking the country music by storm or anything like that just yet. However, he seems to have remained true to himself, and embraced his recent experiences and where he is in his life at the moment. I think Scotty’s fans will definitely be pleased with this album, and he has given them a piece of work that shows promise.