Songwriters: Luke Bryan, Rhett Akins, Ben Hayslip, Dallas Davidson
Akins and Hayslip and Davidson… oh my! I’ll be darned if this new Luke Bryan single doesn’t have “Peach Pickers” written all over it.
Following in a similar vein to his recent smash “Country Girl (Shake It for Me),” “I Don’t Want This Night to End” is laced with familiar scenes of rural romance, this time swapping out the “aw-shucks” goofiness, and instead attempting to up the sexy factor. Here we find Bryan’s attractive female acquaintence with her “hands up… rockin’ in my [Guess the vehicle!] truck… radio on… singin’ every song…”
You get the idea. There aren’t many lines here that we haven’t already heard a time or ten. But perhaps the trait that is most outstanding – a distinction I use loosely – is the testosterone-fueled energy with which Bryan attacks the lyric, particularly when declaring that his girl is “lookin’ so damn hot.”
But just when the enthusiastic performance threatens to make the single interesting, here comes an over-the-top full-throttle country-rock arrangement to swing the pendulum in the polar opposite direction. In some areas, the production sounds like it was culled from the climactic portion of a Hollywood film score – not exactly an ideal sonic backdrop for a backwoods romance – while the wild Guitar Hero riffs advances it from borderline irritating to absolutely grating. By then we’ve gone from “I Don’t Want This Night to End” to “I Just Want This Song to End.”
To some degree, “I Don’t Want This Night to End” at least manages to reaffirm Bryan’s talent for breathing personality into disposable lyrics. But if he were singing lyrics with more tangible traces of originality, he wouldn’t have to deal with that hurtle in the first place.
The 1-to-10 Country Music Review 