Reception
Billboard reviewer Ken Tucker, who gave I'll Stay Me a favorable review for its "unapologetically country" sound, described the song as a "down-home romper". Allmusic critic Thom Jurek referred to it as "line-dance swagger" that was "calculating" but "execute nearly flawlessly".
Brady Vercher of The 9513, however, gave the song a "thumbs down" review, describing it as "mindlessly list anything that could be superficially associated with being a country man". He also thought that the song posed a risk of typecasting Bryan as "the corporate manufactured country boy image" by following so closely on his debut single "All My Friends Say". Michael Sudhalter of Country Standard Time also thought unfavorably of the song, describing it as being "chock full of country clichés", although he called it "the only misstep" on the album.
Read more about this topic: Country Man
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)