Ever since his mainstream arrival in 2017, country singer-songwriter Parker McCollum has been betting on himself. But with his self-titled fifth album (which came out June 27), the still-young hitmaker went all in.
Not so much a concept album as a manifesto, 14 challenging tracks were recorded over seven days at New York City’s famous Power Station, as McCollum blocked out the world to do something outrageous. Staying at the Central Park Ritz-Carlton and doing nothing but recording, he became the rockstar he always dreamed of as a kid. Call it role-playing, or call it indulgence. McCollum calls it a life-changing experience. It helped him reach a higher creative plane.
“It’s always been so hard for me to figure out what the hell I’m trying to do when I make a record, but I put my foot down. I said, ‘Look, we’re going to New York City, and we’re not leaving. We’re not going to run errands. We’re going to cut a damn album, and I’m going to walk around and tell myself I’m really, really good at this for seven days.’”
“I just kind of figured out how I want to do it,” he says. “For lack of a better word, I wanted to get nasty with a record. I wanted to look it in the face and say, ‘I’m the boss; this music is mine.’”
He certainly took control – even more than usual. Proudly “different” from the start, the multiplatinum road dog scored his debut Number One in 2020 by calling out his own faults on “Pretty Heart.” He then followed up with the harsh reality of “To Be Loved by You” and “Burn It Down,” but Parker McCollum shatters the mainstream mold.
For starters, it doesn’t sound like a modern country/rock/hip-hop fusion. A soft touch of classic country instrumentation is kept low in the mix, while McCollum’s vocal seems to cut through the air. The rhythms are fluid, and themes are bold – ranging from R-rated rambles and self incriminating story songs, to the old-school ballad of broken lives where the album begins.
McCollum says it all stems from his drive to live a unique form of the superstar dream. He’s always had the freedom to write and record what he wants – and even says he turned down extra money at the start of his career to retain that right. But deep down, McCollum mostly wants to be a stone-cold songwriting assassin, following the path of heroes like Guy Clark, Rodney Crowell, and Chris Knight – who he name checks on the album. That meant the low-key artist had to step up and get loud.
“It’s always been so hard for me to figure out what the hell I’m trying to do when I make a record, but I put my foot down,” McCollum explains. “I said, ‘Look, we’re going to New York City, and we’re not leaving. We’re not going to run errands. We’re going to cut a damn album, and I’m going to walk around and tell myself I’m really, really good at this for seven days.’ … I always thought I was going to go to New York City in the late fall and stay at a badass hotel and some crazy dope studio, and I finally was like, ‘That’s what I’m going to go do.’”
Working with equally zealous producer Frank Liddell (the studio guru behind the early work of Miranda Lambert, his wife Lee Ann Womack, and more), an old-school in-the-moment recording philosophy was perfect for the task. McCollum did not instruct his studio band how the songs should be arranged, he just started playing and kept going until the track felt done. The result was a batch of tunes that ebb and flow, breathing and playing off one another – and sometimes stretching five or six minutes long.
That approach wouldn’t work for every artist, and neither would McCollum’s affinity for dark, edgy lyrics, which sometimes verge on the NSFW.
“There hasn’t been a whole lot of beer and dirt-road pickup-truck songs that have done it for me,” he admits. “I’ve never been in ‘party mode.’ I’ve never liked happy songs. I mean, I kill two people on the first song on the record!”
That’s true. The set begins on the jammy short story “My Blue,” which follows a fictional cast of characters locked in a literal death spiral of despair. The song recalls Cormac McCarthy and the long-gone days of country murder ballads with a narrative so vivid it feels real.
Likewise, “Solid Country Gold” is almost shocking at the start, setting up a gritty scene of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. But it finds McCollum rejecting that clichéd lifestyle and aiming to put some real country music on the radio instead.
Meanwhile, the soaring radio single “Blue Sky” brightens the mood (ever so briefly) for an open-road rambler, and fellow Texan Cody Johnson joins McCollum for the mellow collab “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues.” “Permanent Headphones” was written when McCollum was just 16, and on the other end of the timeline, “New York Is on Fire” was born when the star’s inbound flight arched over Central Park at dusk, giving the city skyline a radioactive glow.
The fiercely independent student tributes his favorite teacher on “Enough Rope,” with McCollum covering Chris Knight’s devastating blue-collar masterpiece. And with “My Worst Enemy,” the album ends on six minutes of stinging reflection. Backed by a serene mix of classic country and timeless Americana pop, McCollum commits to facing his faults and pushing them aside, a fitting finish to a bold set.
“There was nothing else I wanted to hear after that outro,” he explains. “And it sums up a lot of the record and a lot of the way the record was made – a lot of the reason we went to New York in the first place.”
In truth, McCollum’s self-titled album might be the end of one part of his journey, but it’s likely just the start of the rest.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever been this happy with something and my cup has been this full. It’s a really great feeling,” he says. “That’s how I thought I was going to make records when I was a kid, and it really just took me realizing that I have the control to do that. So yeah, I don’t think I’ll ever not do that [again].”