Southside (Sam Hunt album)

Following the success of Hunt's debut album Montevallo, released in 2014,^[7] Hunt sporadically released several singles^[8][9] while delaying his second studio album.^[10][11] In the years between, he released the massive hit "Body Like a Back Road",^{[citation needed]} "Downtown's Dead",^[12] as well as the track "Drinkin' Too Much".^[13] Hunt gave little details on when his second album would be released until the release of "Kinfolks" in October 2019,^[14] 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.^[15] In February 2020, Hunt finally revealed the album title Southside as well as an April 2020 release date.^[4] The track "Hard to Forget" was soon released to coincide with the beginning of pre-orders,^[16] and was later announced to be the next single.^[17]

More information Aggregate scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	72/100[18]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[19]
Robert Christgau	A−[20]
Entertainment Weekly	B+[21]
Pitchfork	7.5/10[22]
Rolling Stone	[23]
Slant Magazine	[24]
Tom Hull	B+ ()[25]

Close

Southside was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, 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.^[18]

Writing for Rolling Stone, Jon Freeman highlighted the "thread of sensitivity" in Southside and opined that the album made Hunt "a crossover star".^[23] Chris DeVille of Stereogum positively compared the album to Montevallo, praising how the former contains "ever more adventurous packaging and a more seasoned perspective".^[26] In concurrence, Pitchfork'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".^[22] In a mixed review, Seth Wilson of Slant Magazine took note of the album's "ingratiating charm" but criticized its lyrical content.^[24] Robert Christgau 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".^[27]

Southside debuted at number five on the US Billboard 200, opening with 46,000 album-equivalent units, 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.^[33]

Adapted from Southside liner notes.^[34]

• Sam Hunt – guitar (track 5), lead vocals (all tracks)
• Gideon Boley – pedal steel guitar (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 (track 5)
• Jeneé Fleenor – fiddle (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 (track 7), acoustic guitar (tracks 3, 7), electric guitar (track 7), keyboards (track 3)
• Luke Laird – acoustic guitar (track 2), electric guitar (track 2), programming (track 2)
• Devin Malone – cello (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 (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 – bass guitar (tracks 1, 3, 4)
• Bryan Sutton – acoustic guitar (tracks 1, 10)
• Russell Terrell – background vocals (track 1)
• Ilya Toshinsky – banjo (tracks 3, 4), dobro (track 3), acoustic guitar (tracks 2–4, 11), electric guitar (tracks 8, 11)
• Derek Wells – electric guitar (track 3)
• Nir Z. – drums (tracks 3, 4)