Lainey Wilson review, 2024
As is her practice, her fifth album is basically a classic rock record
Lainey Wilson’s partly boogie-woogied “Ring Finger” is at very least the best rap song by a badass country woman surnamed Wilson since Gretchen’s “Chariot” two decades ago. “I got the ring and he got the finger” (thanx to pre-wedding cheating) also make it a 43-years-on rejoinder to Jerry Reed’s comparably funky “She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft).” Its hay-roll with a bouncer counts as Lainey’s second recent anal sex joke, following her guest spot in Hot Country Knights’ “Harassment” — along with Lauren Alaina’s “Thicc as Thieves,” one of her two 2023 cameos celebrating fat-bottomed girls. With Whirlwind’s other pinnacle “Hang Tight Honey,” a brutally muscular sawdust-scooter about returning home off tour, “Ring Finger” suggests Wilson is best when she’s fast, rhythmic, noisy and says “whoo hooo!” a lot.
As is her practice, despite its opening George Jones and Barbara Mandrell allusions, Whirlwind is basically a classic rock record — her songs keep getting longer. Its Miranda Lambert duet plants a red bandana flagging Wilson’s lineage to Janis Joplin, a perennial country inspiration since ‘80s Lacy J. Dalton and K.T. Oslin. Whirlwind’s tornado-tossed title track partakes in the synthesized syncopation of solo Stevie Nicks; “Counting Chickens” starts with a Lindsey Buckingham guitar rip before ending with an Easter egg for quarterbacking beau Devlin “Duck” Hodges; “Bar in Baton Rouge” bombasts like a Bob Seger arena ballad. And if Whirlwind’s alcohol warnings hint Wilson’s ready to curtail her hard living, that only assures her elastic slur and drawl will last longer.
Spin, September 2024