Jon Pardi: Heartache Medication (Deluxe Version) Album Review

Jon Pardi’s Heartache Medication (Deluxe Version) is available now, October 2nd, and includes two brand new songs. Check out our review below as we dig a little deeper.

Singer-songwriter and country traditionalist, Jon Pardi released the deluxe edition of his third studio album, Heartache Medication today (October 2^nd). It contains the fourteen songs on the original, the reimagined “Ain’t Always the Cowboy,” and two brand new tracks, “Bar Downtown” and “Beer Light.”

Pardi released “Ain’t Always the Cowboy (Western Version)” on August 28^th. The new adaptation of this ballad is noticeably slowed down in the beginning to better capture the heartbreak of this now lone cowboy. Now the track is a little more produced, but still includes fiddle, steel guitar and other elements of neotraditional country that Pardi brings to mainstream radio.

“Bar Downtown” is a catchy tune about a guy at bar dwelling on his past relationship. He is hopeful that his ex is doing the same thing he is doing now–waiting for the other to walk through the door–just at a different bar. The songwriting on this track is excellent, using a lot of repetition and different rhyme schemes any English teacher would appreciate.

In the second verse, Pardi sings “Are you acting like I’m acting just acting like it’s all alright? Are you going to different places just trying to find my face and wearing every crown? Or have you come to the conclusion that this ‘over-us’ solution just ain’t working out?”

This creativity is shown in the chorus as well: “Are you somewhere in a bar downtown, thinking about me, baby? Drinking about me, baby? / Am I heavy on your heart right now? Like you were all mine wishing we could rewind just a little?”

“Beer Light” is also about using a bar to get over a woman, but in a much gloomier tone. Whiskey is not the right alcohol for this kind of breakup because “her leaving burned enough.” However, the worst of it is behind him so the singer leans on light beer to fill-in the cracks of his broken heart.

“When I start thinking about the past nothing gets me past it like sitting right here sipping / Light beer needs an old beer light”

Heartache Medication did well on the charts upon its release last year on September 27^th 2019, debuting at number two and number eleven on the Top Country Albums and Billboard 200 charts, respectively. It is up for Album of the Year at the 2020 CMA Awards and also received an ACM nomination, but lost to Luke Combs’ What You See Is What You Get. Its lead single and the title track, “Heartache Medication,” reached number one, making it Pardi’s third chart-topping hit.

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Heartache Medication (Deluxe Version) is now available everywhere you buy or stream music. Take a listen below and check out more new recently released music here on our ‘New Country Music’ playlist. Be sure to give the playlist a follow for your weekly new country music fix.

 

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