The 1981 Listening Post - .38 Special - Wild-Eyed Southern Boys

.38 Special - Wild-Eyed Southern Boys 

#26

By Andrew Anthony

January 21 1981

.38 Special

Wild-Eyed Southern Boys 

Genre: Southern Rock

Allen’s Rating:L 4 out of 5

Andrew’s Rating: 1 out of 5

Highlights:

(Begrudgingly, cuz I frigging HATE HATE HATE .38 Special) 

Hold On Loosely

Review: Southern rock. Ugh. Waaaaay down the list for this kid. I will cop to enjoying a couple of Lynyrd Skynyrd songs, mostly because there’s a modicum of sincerity and real emotion in the lyrics and the guitar work. 

.38 Special, on the other hand, comes across as purely cynical. Everything about them is calculated, over produced and polished, utterly ignoring the much more raw rock swamp boogie that Skynyrd recorded.

This band is so cookie cutter that my friends and I used to joke that you couldn’t tell which .38 Special song you were listening to until they got to the chorus. Try it for yourself: do a random shuffle of their hit songs (Hold On Loosely, Back Where You Belong, Caught Up In You, etc) and see if you can name each song before it gets to the chorus. Good luck...getting through each song without succumbing to the overwhelming urge to throw up your chicken-fried steak and potatoes.

Hard, hard pass.

https://open.spotify.com/album/0McWOHhD5uSpbT4wRuTgpj?si=E_HCAj4PRKabbPRG2JcHsQ