''Southside'' is the second studio album by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

singer

Sam Hunt Sam Lowry Hunt (born December 8, 1984) is an American country music singer and songwriter. Born in Cedartown, Georgia, Hunt played American football, football in his high school and college years and once attempted to pursue a professional sport ...

. It was released through MCA Nashville on April 3, 2020. It was slated to be supported by the Southside Summer Tour 2020, which would have featured guests

Kip Moore Kip Christian Moore (born April 1, 1980) is an American country music singer and songwriter signed to Virgin Music Group. Moore previously recorded for Universal Music Group Nashville, MCA Nashville, where he released five studio albums for th ...

Travis Denning Travis Denning (born December 1, 1992) is an American country music singer and songwriter signed to Universal Music Group Nashville, UMG Nashville's Mercury Nashville label. He has charted with the singles "David Ashley Parker from Powder Springs ...

, Brandi Cyrus, and

Ernest Ernest is a given name derived from the Germanic languages, Germanic word ''ernst'', meaning "serious", often shortened to Ernie. Notable people and fictional characters with the name include: People *Archduke Ernest of Austria (1553–1595), ...

, and was set to begin in

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 United ...

, on May 28, 2020, but was canceled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Background

Following the success of Hunt's debut album '' Montevallo'', released in 2014, Hunt sporadically released several singles while delaying his second studio album. In the years between, he released the massive hit " Body Like a Back Road", " Downtown's Dead", as well as the track " Drinkin' Too Much". Hunt gave little details on when his second album would be released until the release of " Kinfolks" in October 2019, when he stated the full album would be released in 2020 and followed it up with the release of the track " Sinning with You" in January 2020. In February 2020, Hunt finally revealed the album title ''Southside'' as well as an April 2020 release date. The track "

Hard to Forget Hard means something that is difficult to do. It may also refer to: * Hardness, resistance of physical materials to deformation or fracture * Hard water, water with high mineral content Arts and entertainment * ''Hard'' (TV series), a French T ...

" was soon released to coincide with the beginning of pre-orders, and was later announced to be the next single.

Critical reception

''Southside'' was met with generally positive reviews. At

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album holds an average score of 72 based on six reviews. Writing for ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'', Jon Freeman highlighted the "thread of sensitivity" in ''Southside'' and opined that the album made Hunt "a crossover star". Chris DeVille of ''

Stereogum ''Stereogum'' is a daily Internet publication that focuses on music news, reviews, interviews, and commentary. The site was created in January 2002 by Scott Lapatine. ''Stereogum'' was one of the first MP3 blogs and has received several awar ...

'' positively compared the album to ''Montevallo'', praising how the former contains "ever more adventurous packaging and a more seasoned perspective". In concurrence, ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...

''s Natalie Weiner stated that the album "shows a clarity of purpose that his debut lacked" while also praising Hunt's "enviably organic" way of threading "the country/hip-hop needle". In a mixed review, Seth Wilson of ''

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yor ...

'' took note of the album's "ingratiating charm" but criticized its lyrical content.

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

awarded the album an A− grade in his online subscription letter praising in particular Hunt's "way with words" prevailing throughout the record, citing the chorus of 'Body Like a Back Road' as an example of his words cherishing "the American vernacular that imbues great pop songwriting from Irving Berlin to Jay-Z in a Nashville dialect that recalls John Prine".

Rankings

Commercial performance

''Southside'' debuted at number five on the US ''Billboard'' 200, opening with 46,000

album-equivalent unit The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, often shortened to just unit, is a sales metric in the music industry that defines the number of streaming media, songs streamed and music download, songs downloaded equal to one Record sales, tradi ...

s, including 18,000 pure album sales. It earned the third-largest streaming week for a country album, and is Hunt's second US top-10 album.

Track listing

Personnel

Adapted from ''Southside'' liner notes. *

– guitar (track 5), lead vocals (all tracks) *Gideon Boley –

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a console steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings, enabling more varied and complex music to be played than with other steel guitar designs. Like all steel guitars, it can play ...

(track 3) *Tim Braisted – bass guitar (track 8), background vocals (track 10) *Josh Burkett – electric guitar (track 8), guitar (track 5) *Bryce Cain – acoustic guitar (track 10), keyboards (track 10), programming (track 10) *Tyrone Carreker – electric guitar (track 8), background vocals (track 10) *Jamil Chammas – electric guitar (track 8) *Dave Cohen – keyboards (track 10) * Zach Crowell – bass guitar (track 3), acoustic guitar (track 6), keyboards (tracks 2–7, 9, 11, 12), programming (all tracks), background vocals (tracks 2–6, 8, 9) *Ian Fitchuk – keyboards (tracks 5, 8),

organ Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ...

(track 5) *Jeneé Fleenor –

fiddle A fiddle is a Bow (music), bowed String instrument, string musical instrument, most often a violin or a bass. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including European classical music, classical music. Althou ...

(tracks 2, 4, 9) *Jerry Flowers – background vocals (track 3) *Charlie Handsome – acoustic guitar (track 8), programming (track 8) *Evan Hutchings – drums (track 8) *Chris LaCorte –

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. ...

(track 7), acoustic guitar (tracks 3, 7), electric guitar (track 7), keyboards (track 3) *

Luke Laird Luke Robert Laird (born May 4, 1978 in Hartstown, Pennsylvania) is an American country music songwriter and producer. He has written over 20 number one ''Billboard'' singles, including Carrie Underwood's " So Small", " Temporary Home", and ...

– acoustic guitar (track 2), electric guitar (track 2), programming (track 2) *Devin Malone –

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

(track 12), acoustic guitar (tracks 1, 4, 9, 11), electric guitar (tracks 3, 4, 8, 11), guitar (tracks 5, 12), pedal steel guitar (tracks 3, 9, 12) *Josh Matheny –

dobro Dobro () is an American brand of resonator guitars owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar. The Dobro was originally a gui ...

(tracks 3, 7, 11), acoustic guitar (track 3) *Anthony Olympia – dobro (track 8) *Josh Osborne – guitar (track 5), background vocals (tracks 3, 5) *Justin Ostrander – electric guitar (track 8) *Russ Pahl – dobro (track 2), pedal steel guitar (tracks 1, 2, 6, 7, 11) *Sol Philcox-Littlefield – electric guitar (track 4) *Joshua Sales – drums (tracks 5, 8) *Scotty Sanders – dobro (track 5), pedal steel guitar (tracks 5, 8) *

Jimmie Lee Sloas Jimmie Lee Sloas is an American session musician, producer, and songwriter, who plays bass. History Jimmie Lee Sloas, born in Ashland, Kentucky, grew up in Fairborn, Ohio and Isonville, Kentucky. His father, Dave, was a member of the popular ...

– bass guitar (tracks 1, 3, 4) * Bryan Sutton – acoustic guitar (tracks 1, 10) *Russell Terrell – background vocals (track 1) *

Ilya Toshinsky Bering Strait was a Russian country music band, whose style was sometimes called "redgrass". In 2003, the band was nominated for a Grammy Award and appeared on the TV show ''60 Minutes''. The group disbanded in 2006. The lineup on their first al ...

– banjo (tracks 3, 4), dobro (track 3), acoustic guitar (tracks 2–4, 11), electric guitar (tracks 8, 11) *

Derek Wells Derek M. Wells (born 28 November 1946) is a former Canadian politician who served as the Liberal member of Parliament for the riding of South Shore from 1993 to 1997. Early life and education Born in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, Wells grad ...

– electric guitar (track 3) * Nir Z. – drums (tracks 3, 4)

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Release history

Notes

References

{{Authority control 2020 albums Albums produced by Shane McAnally Albums produced by Zach Crowell MCA Records albums Sam Hunt albums Contemporary R&B albums by American artists