The way to do that in mainstream country music isn’t to try something new so much as to have the most hit songs, which is probably why the album feels groomed in that direction. (They should be considered more the former than the latter, I suppose, since the album debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, and their first album was a massive hit.) That photo gives the sense that they consider this, their second album, as a chance to push themselves up to the next level. Lady Antebellum are dressed-up and photographed to look either like superstars or wanna-be superstars on the cover. With the crowd chanting “hey”s, Lady Antebellum proclaim “we’re all stars tonight” and “tonight we’re all in the band”. The song paints a scene of a night on the town, with everyone out to see a rock band, and then puts us both on the stage and in the crowd. One overt attempt at reaching the masses through identification is “Stars Tonight”. That’s the direction Lady Antebellum is coming from, just like Sugarland, Rascal Flatts, and country radio in general. It’s very much a current-day country move, which means also an ‘80s arena-rock move, maybe a ‘70s singer-songwriter move. That “c’mon” at the beginning of the song proves to be a we’re-all-in-the-same-boat move, a call to the audience to acknowledge they have felt exactly what he is singing. It’s about the prototypical on-again/off-again relationship, but there’s a point where we get past relationships, where the song’s narrator admits life is best when things are at their worst: “It’s like I’m just not me / If I can’t be / A sad sad song”. “It’s like I love this pain / A little too much / Love my heart all busted up”, is the sentiment. Opening with a playful “C’mon”, it is all about falling for someone who torments you. The corollary to that lyric is the song “Love This Pain”, probably the catchiest of the album’s up-tempo numbers. Scott sings, “I’d rather hurt than feel nothing at all”, a striking line for the awareness shown within a supposed moment of irrationality and desperate passion. These are not people drinking to feel no pain. The emphasis seems to be on the little, based on the level of self-analysis in the song. “It’s a quarter after 1 / I’m a little drunk / And I need you now”, Charles Kelley sings, alternating verses with Hillary Scott. Drunk-dialing your ex is apparently something people can relate to. The main reason it stood out from the pack of soft-pop-leaning country ballads of attempted reconciliation is the late-night setting of inebriation. Lady Antebellum’s second album is titled after the song “Need You Now”, a #1 country single last year.
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