Saturday Flashback: Sam Hunt – Body Like A Backroad

“You what?”

Tom: I know we don’t normally cover country here, even the pop-music version of it. But stick with this, because I’ve got a couple of reasons for it — the first of which is, this exemplifies the country standard of “entire song as extended simile”.

Tom: So here’s the surprising thing: this is one of the most popular country songs in US history.

Tim: You what?

Tom: 34 weeks at the top of the country chart. (It’s worth noting that US Billboard charts include airplay; it is still getting huge amounts of play on both pop and country stations, despite being released in February.) Triple platinum in both the US and Canada. Platinum in Australia. And… nothing in Britain.

Tim: Well…yeah. Admittedly I’m not best placed to judge the merits of country songs, but even I can tell this is really quite dull. That line “15 in a 30” pretty much sums it up.

Tom: Oh, and no music video either. Sure, it’s on YouTube as audio, and as a lyric video, but if any music TV channels want to play it, they’ve got nothing.

Country music is strange.

Tim: Utterly baffling.