Shelton’s Wheelhouse Debut Leans Into Recreation

After over two decades with Warner Music Nashville, Blake Shelton left the label and released his debut album, For Recreational Use Only, with Wheelhouse Records. Shelton has spent almost 25 years in the music business, having released his eponymous debut back in 2001. The graying country star and long-time vocal coach on The Voice is a Veteran in the category of 21st-century country musicians.

Switching labels this late in the game probably means he wanted to make some fundamental changes.

Shelton started out as a scrappy young country singer, but he didn’t stay that way. His sound got slicker than slick during the 2010s, occupying that corner of country music immediately adjacent to pop where he could make dalliances with R&B and arena-worthy anthems. Take a tour through Body Language and Texoma Shore, and some songs hit you as country in name only. In one sense, to hear For Recreational Use Only is to hear the distance between now and Shelton’s debut album 24 years ago, and the album measures it through a return trip.

For Recreational Use Only has the feel of someone deciding it’s time to regroup and get back to the basics. If that’s the case, “Live Country or Die Tryin',” the album’s opener, is an anthem custom-made for just such a move. Built from an electric guitar sound that captures an echo of seventies country (think “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys”), it incorporates a riff on acoustic guitar and mandolin that eventually gets underscored by the fiddle. “Bust your ass, still won’t make a killin’/ It’s a lifestyle, it ain’t a livin’,” Shelton sings before belting out a chorus that manages to incorporate almost every tried-and-true trope from the country music book of images.

The album follows suit in a flawless, if calculated, recitation of everything that makes a country record. Shelton, who doesn’t have a writing credit here, sings his way through a broken-up-but-still-in-love song, a one-night-stand-that-could-be-love song, and a couple of religious tunes, followed by a few drinking anthems that are shored up with a meditation on the passage of time. The band on these recordings is solid, and the music never stops sounding like country, even if the style’s most identifiable elements are just south of present in the mix. But let’s be honest. No one’s going to listen to this record for Aubrey Haynie (who plays fiddle on two songs) or even for the 13-second guitar break on “Cold Can.”

Recreational Use is all about Shelton’s voice, and his honey-cured twang seldom fails to play to the part. He’s “a hardheaded God-fearin' man from the boondocks,” a repentant southern boy, or just a guy who’s happy to get drunk. In all these roles, he never strains to convince and rarely lets the mask slip. In “Hangin’ On,” a duet with wife Gwen Stefani, both singers conjure up the aura of a high school breakup without ever saying the word. In “Heaven Sweet Home,” Shelton’s voice trades world-weary woes for popular religious imagery on the currency of nuance. In “Don’t Mississippi,” Shelton takes a bad drinking pun and spins it into a catchy chorus, one of many on this record.

One of the album’s highlights is the second cut, “Texas,” two-and-a-half minutes of wry swagger that blends effortlessly with Latin-tinted R&B. If Camila Cabello ever wants a crossover song, this one will do nicely. Shelton grins his way through responses to backup singers (“How’s your girl?” “She ain’t my girl.” “Where’s she been?” “I ain’t quite sure.”) before launching into a chorus that nods to George Strait. And if the nod is a little too on the nose, probably no one minds.

Or do they? For Recreational Use Only peaked at number 8 on the Top Country Albums chart, but for only a couple of weeks, making it Shelton’s poorest performer (though the single, “Texas,” did well). His status as a celebrity may have eclipsed his status as a country singer. It makes it hard to buy lines like “Boots never touched easy street.” Popular music has always sold fake identities for a living, and the top seller is usually authenticity. That’s not a criticism of Shelton, just an observation of the reality of the industry. It’s the listeners who are the fickle ones, buying authenticity today, exchanging it tomorrow.

Shelton may be experiencing a high exchange rate. It happens. The question is, what is he going to do next? Throughout his career, Shelton’s music has often catered to the recreational. Maybe now it’s time to get serious.

Christopher Raley