In Review: Morgan Wallen, Bruce Springsteen's Country, Dire Straits
Plus Tune-Yards, Butthole Surfers, Maddie & Tae, Car Seat Headrest.
Morgan Wallen—I'm The Problem [2025]
"If I'm the problem, you might be the reason," sings Morgan Wallen on the first of 37 tracks on I'm The Problem, his third successive double album. Wallen's shirking of personal responsibility is what amounts to his star persona: he might act out but only because he was forced to do so, pushed to his limits by a girlfriend or the urban jungle.
Wallen didn't have this peevishness four years ago. He cultivated this prickliness after the release of Dangerous: The Double Album in January 2021, a reaction to the furor surrounding his drunken use of a racial slur during a night of drinking. Other scandals of varying severity followed, all buttressing his popularity; he became a totem of opposition for Red America, an outlaw who rebels by coloring within the lines.
Wallen's success suggests there's a there there, a notion his albums refute. This is especially true of I'm The Problem, which finds the singer spending the better part of two hours amiably riding a mellow groove that's designed to be background music. Tempos don't change, the trappings do. Tracks are mixed a little louder or a little softer, guests drift in and out, there are traces of trap rhythms, hints of classic-rock and a heap of soft rock. The slight yet distinct emphasis on accents signals Wallen's intent to appeal to a variety of demographics but he isn't versatile so much as malleable, willing to adapt to the new rules of the game. Call this flexibility the curse of music-oriented reality TV: a decade removed from his run on The Voice, he still sings like a game show contestant.
Pugnacious in public, Wallen is insufferably polite on record. Able to hit his marks while approximating feeling, he doesn't invest his songs with distracting emotion, choosing to ease along melodies that are affable, not commanding. Lyrics are a distraction to the hooks, the hooks can spoil the vibe and the vibe is paramount. All this makes I'm The Problem profoundly boring. It hums along in the background, never asking anything of the listener and never giving them anything, either.
Springsteen's Country [2025; 1981-2021]
Bruce Springsteen cultivated a personal connection with country music in the late 1970s, developing an obsession with Hank Williams that soon spilled over into his own music. Nebraska, the acoustic album he recorded alone on a Tascam Portastudio, is the first public airing of this influence and he moved further into country with Tunnel of Love, the 1987 record that's by most measures a contemporary country record. Songs from Nebraska and Tunnel of Love form the backbone of Ace's Springsteen's Country, a twenty-track compilation of country and Americana artists who've cut Springsteen songs over the years. Some of these inclusions are expected: Johnny Cash opens the proceedings with his rampaging take on "Johnny 99," recorded not long after the release of Nebraska, and the collection closes with Steve Earle's singing "State Trooper" live on stage. What makes Springsteen's Country such an enjoyable listen