Description
Sam Hunt – Southside – Vinyl Record
Sam Hunt’s Southside, released on April 3, 2020, is the country-pop artist’s long-awaited second studio album and a reflective, genre-blending journey through themes of heartbreak, regret, and personal growth. Arriving six years after his blockbuster debut Montevallo (2014), Southside maintains Hunt’s signature fusion of modern country, R&B, and pop, but with a more introspective and emotionally mature tone.
The album opens with “2016,” a stripped-down, acoustic ballad that sets a confessional mood—Hunt openly confronts his past mistakes, particularly in his personal life and relationship struggles. This vulnerability recurs throughout Southside, giving the album a stronger narrative thread than his debut. Songs like “Sinning with You” challenge traditional country morality with thoughtful introspection, while “Breaking Up Was Easy in the 90s” nostalgically contrasts modern digital detachment with the emotional clarity of a pre-smartphone era.
Of course, Hunt doesn’t entirely abandon the upbeat, genre-bending flair that brought him fame. Tracks like “Kinfolks” and “Hard to Forget”—the latter sampling Webb Pierce’s 1953 honky-tonk hit—bring clever production and pop appeal, while “Body Like a Back Road,” a chart-dominating hit released years before the album, is included as a bonus track, serving as a bridge between his early and later styles.
Produced by Zach Crowell, Southside blends traditional country instrumentation with trap beats, vocal layering, and sleek pop production, continuing to push genre boundaries. Critics noted the album’s tonal shift compared to Montevallo, highlighting the more subdued and reflective songwriting, though some wished for more of the sonic experimentation that made his debut a breakthrough.
Commercially, the album was a success, debuting at #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and in the top 5 on the Billboard 200. It reaffirmed Hunt’s place as one of the most innovative and polarizing figures in modern country music—a songwriter and performer unafraid to blend hip-hop cadences, R&B textures, and Southern storytelling.
Southside is a matured, emotionally nuanced follow-up that captures both the restlessness of romantic regret and the creative ambition that continues to define Sam Hunt’s career. It’s not just a sophomore album—it’s a reckoning with fame, failure, and personal transformation in a genre still learning how to embrace its pop-leaning pioneers.
Brand new, never played and still in the factory plastic sealed
Track Listing
2016
Hard To Forget
Kinfolks
Young Once
Body Like A Back Road
That Ain’t Beautiful
Let It Down
Downtown’s Dead
Nothing Lasts Forever
Sinning With You
Breaking Up Was Easy In The ’90s
Drinkin’ Too Much
