With the album format starting to revert back to the past way of selling music by singles and EPs (extended players), Blake Shelton's record label came to him with the idea of releasing a "Six-pack" of new tunes.  The six pack (which is an EP) would feature one single and five other songs Blake Shelton just really liked and wanted to record.  The advantage of doing these six packs is that, in the current music climate, it takes a long, long time for an artist to score a hit single so by the time that the title track of this six-pack, Hillbilly Bone, peaks, the song will have been out on the charts for about half a year.  Rather than wait two years to release an album after two or three single releases, Blake Shelton will release another Six Pack later this year, in either late summer or early fall. 

The title track is obviously the 'featured' track on this six pack and it is currently a Top 10 hit.  The next track on the EP is "Kiss My Country Ass," a song which was written by Rhett Akins, Dallas Davidson and Jon Stone.   If works nicely with "Hillbilly Bone" and doesn't take itself too seriously but does come off as a sort of mission statement while "You'll Always Be Beautiful" may have a title that's been said quite a few times but rather than be a laundry-list of clichés about the way the woman makes him feel and quite honestly, it's an unflattering but real portrait of a type of woman who most certainly is out there in the world.

"Can't Afford To Love You" tells an interesting story of a guy who takes a chance on asking a girl 'out of his league' out and even though he 'can't afford' to take her places, he eventually learns that he 'can't afford not to' try.  It's charming, silly and quite honestly could be a hit.  "Delilah" was inspired by Miranda Lambert's dog but instead tells a tale of a lonely woman who is always trying to find somebody who will stand beside her but she doesn't find anyone.  With a Waylon-like melody the song soars, and the lonesome lyric is great too.  If they were going to have a second single from this Hillbilly bone "Six Pack," I'd choose this one.  "Almost Alright" is a song about a guy who is in many way like Blake Shelton. 

With six songs, Blake Shelton has crafted a smaller album that lends itself to multiple listens.  All the songs are likeable with a couple of them really worthy of being played on the radio (but most likely won't).  If the second "six pack" is as good as this one then the fans, the artists, the songwriters and the record companies may just star jumping for joy as this way of releasing 'albums' will actually entice artists to record songs they love, not 'filler' tracks that can take away from the rest of the album.

You can support Blake Shelton by purchasing this album at Amazon | iTunes.