About this Artist

• Biography

Editorial Reviews

On his second album The Dreamer, Blake Shelton paints an effective portrait of life in the blue-collar trenches. He buttresses his songs of commitment, work, family, and home with traditional instruments, discreet deployment of rock guitar, and his expressive, personable baritone. A timeless country theme -- momma -- gets a bravura treatment in the touching ballad "The Baby," the tale of a favored youngest child who gets The Call that his mother is dying too late to be by her bedside. On the southern-rock-tinged title cut, Shelton sings from the gut as well as the heart of a fellow who learns the hard way that achieving a dream isn't worth the "broken memories" of the woman he lost along the way. The acoustic guitar line that bookends "Underneath the Same Moon" may be from "Stairway to Heaven," but the meat of the song -- a full-blown production with synths, strings, soaring background chorus, and swirling pedal steel lines -- allows Shelton to stretch out vocally, as he brings deep emotion to a haunting remembrance of a lover. His themes also tackle life's bawdier side, as evidenced by the honky-tonk-fueled "Georgia in a Jug," in which Shelton gleefully vows to give the jug all it can handle, and the infectious rocker "Playboys of the Southwestern World," which boasts a buoyant chorus perfect for blasting loud in a car. Some may find The Dreamer a bit light at ten songs, but in this case brevity is the soul of substance -- there's lots of meat on this bone. David McGee, Barnes & Noble

Customer Reviews

• Listener Rating:
• Ratings: 9Reviews: 9
• See All Reviews

More Customer Reviews