Once an artist achieves superstar status they have an amazing amount of stress put on them to not only deliver more and more ‘great music’ that keeps the newer fans but music that will appeal to fans of their earliest music.  To many fans these stars will have to sound the same over and over in order to retain the fans.  It’s a tough road for many artists, particularly country artists, because their fans are, more often than not, the type that requires something to be the ‘same’ over and over again.  That something is usually a sound that grounds the music within the genre without it ever being considered anything but a country song. 

Sugarland is a group that has never really tried to sound the same over and over again. While they’ve had a base that is country in a modern context, the duo of Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush has never been content to record the same sounding song over and over again.  Each of their albums are meant to challenge and evolve.  Taking this into account, it’s easy to understand where Sugarland is coming from on their new single “Stuck Like Glue.”

Like many songs, this one is an earworm designed to be played over and over again, especially in your head.  With acoustic guitars, percussion and accordion providing the base of “Stuck Like Glue,” the band expands on this to create an absolutely engaging but totally non country (in 50’s or 90s context) song.   The bride/breakdown which gets a little reggae or R&B-like (think Beyonce's "Irreplaceable") works when it probably shouldn’t.  Like many mainstram pop songs the chorus of “Stuck Like Glue” is repeated over and over again and there’s even a bit of autotune used in parts of the song (as “echoes” of Jennifer and Kristian). 

Music is constantly evolving and there’s no doubt that this song will be heartily embraced by country radio stations but for anyone who loved Sugarland from their first two albums or even some of the songs on Love on the Inside, will be absolutely appalled by this new single and will chalk it up as but one more nail in the ‘coffin’ of country radio. 

I’ve never considered myself a traditionalist and I define music by simple good or bad distinctions.  To me “Stuck Like Glue” is exactly what it’s meant to be, a slice of ‘ear candy’ that is ‘fun.’   I think modern country radio is fine, precisely because they do play a wide variety of songs that appeal to many people, which is exactly what “Stuck Like Glue” will do.

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