I don’t know why I keep picking these ‘Song Pick of the Week’ cards at Starbucks, sometimes I forgot, but if I need some soy milk in my tea my eyes get automatically attracted by these iTunes cards resting on their little box and waiting for me. This week, it’s: ‘Broke My Heart’ by David Nail. I have never heard of the guy, but I had a feeling based on the title,… country? Bingo!
This song is not gonna change your life, not even your day or hour of the day, but there are actually very few songs which can do that, right? If it wasn’t for the twang in the voice, it would not even be country. The song is a sort of pop ballad which doesn’t wander very far from its departure, but at least it’s upbeat, yeap, nothing depressing in the tune and musically, you couldn’t ask for a more predictable chorus than this one. ‘Even if you never broke my heart/Even if you never broke my heart/I’d still be begging you to tear it apart/Even if you never broke my heart’… it says, and I don’t exactly get what he means, is he asking for heartbreak because it feels more country? No idea, but Nail is still at the edge of country music, he is certainly not mainstream if he is featured on this false-indie Starbucks cards, however this song, which is featured on his third and upcoming studio album ‘I’m a Fire’, may have some radio-airplay potentials.
I read a bit about him and this is apparently a new direction as he ditched the piano-heavy ballads of his previous albums for a bigger guitar sound. His influences are Elton John, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Jackson 5 and the Temptations – see no country stars! – and had Sheryl Crow’s mother for piano teacher. Also he really wants to be recognized among his peers as he declared in an interview: ‘And if you don’t think I’m a country artist, I can take you home to where I come from, and you can see for yourself.’ Okay… I would say that he is totally country friendly, and you know what, he opened for that teen pop star who is still classified in the country genre for reasons that escape me, the serial-dater Taylor Swift herself! And if this is not a career lift, I don’t know what would be one! Still, to me, he sounds like the millions of Keith Urban that populate the genre.
‘I’m a Fire’ is set to be released on March 4th via MCA Nashville, and the download code of the song on iTunes is M4HFT3AJRX7R