Jon Pardi's Hyperactive Honky-Tonk Brings The Past Into The Present

Some of the friskiest country music made by previous generations was paired with sounds and sensibilities that registered as hard-edged and undiluted in twang (see: Hank Williams, John Anderson, Alan Jackson and countless others). But that hasn't been the case for many years now. Throughout the 2010s, fairly current pop, R&B and hip-hop have served as the chief muses for country's party fare, while performers of more traditional mentalities, from elder statespeople like George Strait and Reba McEntire to underappreciated younger talents like Ashley Monroe and William Michael Morgan, have been the keepers of melancholy and measured sentimentality.

, a native Californian who's spent this decade building his career in Nashville, has willfully ignored that divide while attracting youthful crowds with his rascally, hyperactive brand of hard country. His breakthrough moment came in his fourth year of releasing music, 2015, when he topped the Country Airplay chart with "Head Over Boots," an uncluttered honky-tonk shuffle with crisp, contemporary production. He seemed like less of an outlier once began his own ascent a couple of years later, affably red-blooded and, like Pardi himself, fluent in the country of his youth. Both this year.