Clocking in at a walloping 112 minutes and comprising 36 songs, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time is a wildly uneven follow-up to 2021’s already overburdened Dangerous: The Double Album. Listening to the album in one sitting is akin to binging a seven-course meal: While there are some memorable bits, it all blurs into a comatose-inducing fog.
To Wallen’s credit, there are a few production flourishes throughout the album that find the current bad boy of country music experimenting, if ever so slightly, with his sound. Most notable is the faint hip-hop influence on tracks like “Sunrise,” “I Wrote the Book,” and “180 (Lifestyle),” though it mostly manifests in the form of snappy 808s and little else.
Add to this the occasional dabbling in a few other country subgenres, which range from the likes of honky-tonk western (“Everything I Love”) to bro-country balladry (“Cowgirls,” a song about, you guessed it, how great cowgirls are), and One Thing at a Time reveals itself as a big-budget, major-label album that’s clearly aiming for as much crossover appeal as possible.
Aside from those tracks—as well as “Last Drive Down Main,” a cathartic stab at power-pop—there’s little here that could be considered fresh by Wallen’s standards. His music is typically concerned with one of three things: getting shitfaced, being lovesick, or Jesus. And the majority of the album’s songs continue in that mold, with next to no self-awareness for how thinly stretched this brand of single-minded songwriting can be when spread across nearly two hours. The closest Wallen ever gets to introspection is on “Born with a Beer in My Hand,” where he openly admits, “If I never put that can to my mouth, I wouldn’t have anything to sing about.”
One could, in fact, make a drinking game out of how many times alcohol is referenced on One Thing at a Time, but you’d be liable to succumb to alcohol poisoning by the halfway point. There’s “Whiskey Friends,” where the song’s titular companions, Jack and Jim, turn out to be obvious references to two popular brands of whiskey. And then there’s “Man Made a Bar,” a limp duet with Eric Church about how God made the Earth in “seven short days,” which somehow results in man inventing the first bar in order to cope with his eventual loneliness.
Elsewhere, “Single Than She Was” finds Wallen reflecting on the first time he met a former lover, but the most notable detail that he recalls about the encounter is the “two beers on the counter” when they were first introduced. By the time 20th track, “I Deserve a Drink,” rolls around, One Thing at a Time has already begun to feel like self-parody.
Which is a shame, since Wallen has a few other, more satisfying songwriting tricks in his back pocket. On “98 Braves,” he compares a failed relationship to one of the most celebrated Major League Baseball seasons that didn’t win a title, and the winking “Hope That’s True” and “Neon Star (Country Boy Lullaby)” prove how funny and likable he can be when he lays off the booze.
Far too often, though, Wallen defaults to songs like “Don’t Think Jesus,” a corny attempt at absolving oneself of having uttered a racial slur. The song’s central theme, that Jesus always forgives no matter what, doesn’t feel remotely convincing in terms of addressing the baggage that comes with this album. While Wallen isn’t obligated to relitigate the incident in his music, how he’s chosen to address it feels, like most of One Thing at a Time, half-hearted at best.
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This is the best album of all time are u serious ???! Every song is a hit
Once is enough. The songs just sounded alike. And wtf 44 writers on this. This was just a money grab. His rabid fans will buy shite if he sold it. In what other world would this snaggletooth mediocre pinhead have this success. Excellent review by the way.
Why does every single review I’ve read have to reference him drunkenly saying something he shouldn’t have?? (not to mention it was said privately and not in a malicious way) Just a bunch of haters. Rock on MW, we love you!
The difference in this album and the last is simple, first time I heard “Wasted on You” loved it! This Album is dull, with terrible songwriting and it doesn’t come close to the last album! I haven’t found one song I like and I loved almost every song on the last album! Just not catchy choruses like the last album! Huge fan, but this one is a dud for me so far! I want to like it but “Sand in My Boots, “Whiskey Glasses”, isn’t one song of the 36 that even touch the level of the last album!
All of his songs are a hit. But I think mostly right now, “Good Girl Gone Missin'” or better yet “Thnkin Bout Me”, are the best. I have always loved his style of voice. Whoever keeps hating on him just doesn’t like the way he rolls. Just because someone makes a mistake doesn’t mean that they are that way it was a one-time thing, and he shouldn’t keep getting sh*t about it.
You’re bugging
I like,,,,I wrote the book,,,,partly because he really played baseball,,,,and it has highs on the vocal range,,,pleasant to the ear and I have to hear a lot of junk here in Nashville,,,,
I recommend put it on and listen all the way through. It is REALLY GOOD. A lot of hits on this.
No way are you correct. Clearly you are wrong as it once again broke the streaming records for spotify. Lose your bias and listen to the music. It is a work of art.
This review can be summed up as ‘ignorant liberal critic hates Morgan Wallen’ for anyone who’s looking for the TL;DR version.
Imagine a New York based writer hating on this…Wow, shocked! Yeah, it wasn’t written about you, for you or in anyway the way you choose to live your life. The charts and the sales tell a different tale than that of a jaded big city snob.