Reba, “Turn On The Radio”

Country’s queen, Reba, has seen a huge comeback in her career over the past year. Her smash hit “Consider Me Gone” became her longest running number one single and helped launch her album, Keep On Loving You, to gold status. After the title track reached the top 10, Reba has decided to release a song from her upcoming album. Does “Turn On The Radio” have enough to continue her incredible run at country radio?

Sometimes artists, usually older artists, try to change their artistic beliefs in order to remain current and relevant during the ever changing styles of country music. Sometimes, though rarely, those risks pay off big time for certain artists. Other times those changes result in a horrendous song that you don’t expect to come from that said artist.

Reba McEntire unfortunately falls into the latter category with her new single, “Turn On The Radio.” On this girl-done-wrong-revenge song, Reba tries her hand at a country rocker but fails miserably. The production is extremely over-done with the blaring guitars and pop drum beats and resembles a mixture of the over-done productions of Carrie Underwood’s “Cowboy Casanova” and “Undo It.” There is just way too much going on that it’s hard to not have a headache by the song’s end. Unfortunately, the production isn’t the only bad part of the song.

The lyrics are some of the worst I’ve heard from Reba in a very long time. The song finds her telling her two timing lover that the only way he’ll ever hear from her is if he turns on his radio. When he does, he can crank up the stereo in his Chevy truck and listen to her sing their song about how he did her wrong. The most ridiculous line comes from the second verse which mentions Twitter and texting in an effort to make the song relevant to the younger generation of fans. The only thing that could’ve saved this song from being a total trainwreck is Reba’s vocal performance but because the production and lyrics are already a trainwreck the vocals are brought down because of it.

Considering Reba has delivered so many classics over her illustrious career and is considered the Queen of Country music, I expect way more than this trainwreck of a song. It’s a shame that this song is in the same catalog as some of her classics like “Whoever’s in New England,” “For My Broken Heart,” and “You Lie.” However, because she’s released plenty of classics over the years, I think she deserves a free pass to release bad songs every once in awhile. Let’s hope this is the only time she cashes that pass in.