Jackson Dean<\/a> has the opportunity to turn a song with similar contours, new single \u201cMake a Liar,\u201d into an outlier hit in its own right in country music. It\u2019s more extreme than \u201cFire\u201d \u2013 its instrumental hook is more barren, Dean\u2019s vocal is more raw and the Stax\/Muscle Shoals vibe is a bigger surprise in the context of modern country than \u201cFire\u201d was in then-current top 40 radio. But it\u2019s likely to establish its own place in the format, just as it\u2019s already created its own lane in Dean\u2019s canon.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cThis was out of the territory that we have been in before,\u201d he says. \u201cWe didn\u2019t really have anything like this in the arsenal, but we were looking for new places to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIndeed, Dean and producer Luke Dick (Miranda Lambert, Kip Moore) had discussed old-school R&B as a possible shade to throw on his gritty core of country, fueled by blues and Southern rock.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cJack and I had explored that kind of sound and vision for a song where it was almost soul-based in the way that the bass works,\u201d Dick says. \u201cI was fascinated with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tNear the end of 2024, songwriter Randy Montana (\u201cBeer Never Broke My Heart,\u201d \u201cThis is My Dirt\u201d) brought in the \u201cMake a Liar\u201d title \u2013 part of the bigger payoff line, \u201cMake a liar outta me\u201d \u2013 when he and Dick were writing on their own. Montana had a concept to go with it, too, a singer repeatedly announcing his unwillingness to take part in a series of romantic suggestions, only to slyly reverse himself: \u201cMake a liar outta me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cLuke was like, \u2018Yeah, that\u2019s it\u2019 and wrote it down,\u201d Montana recalls, \u201cand we were off to the races.\u201d Dick eased into the signature bassline \u2013 a slinky, funky, slow-cookin\u2019 come-on \u2013 and it gave them a project for the two-hour window they had in their schedules. Knowing where the payoff would land, they found a device fairly quickly in the opening lines, the singer insisting \u201cI ain\u2019t comin\u2019 to your house,\u201d followed by a stream of \u201cI don\u2019t want to\u2026\u201d ideas. It wasn\u2019t clear if it was an audible conversation, thoughts in the singer\u2019s head, or even a mix of those two things. It didn\u2019t really matter.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cA lot of my favorite songs were like that Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers\u2019 stuff,\u201d Montana notes. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t this exact specific thing that you knew he was doing in the moment. It was more or less like a feeling or [it was] up to the listener to decide.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThey logged the entire first verse with the vocal melody playing off the bass hook, and they got a portion of the chorus, too, until Dick brought it to a stop.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI really thought that this was something that Jackson should come in on,\u201d he says. \u201cHe could inform this song in a way that would be specific to him, and I thought it\u2019s something that would really speak to him. I wanted him in the room so that, creatively, he could have a stamp on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDick pulled together a bare-bones work tape of what they had to date, then sent it to Dean with an invite to help them finish it. Unlike the song\u2019s character, Dean immediately said \u201cyes,\u201d and a couple days later, they completed \u201cMake a Liar\u201d with the singer supplying some of the images that would seal the deal while fashioning some of the chorus melody in a way that fit his range and tone. The \u201cI don\u2019t wanna\u2026\u201d device continued in the chorus, but they lifted the range and shifted the phrasing from conversational to aggressive. And Dean broke into a pleading request \u2013 \u201cBaby, plea-ea-ease\u2026\u201d \u2013 before it all came to a halt with the hook, \u201cMake a liar outta me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the first verse, he had protested going to her house. In verse two, he announced that she was not invited to his home. When they got to the bridge, the protagonist casually insists, \u201cI ain\u2019t wanting you to stay.\u201d It\u2019s a subtle way to let the listener understand that all of his \u201cno\u2019s\u201d led to a \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cShe took the dare,\u201d Dean says. \u201cIt\u2019s all about daring somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDick developed a demo that provided a template for a half-dozen musicians when they recorded it last spring at the Southern Ground Studios in Nashville. Electric guitarist Rob McNelley, acoustic guitarist Bryan Sutton and bassist Craig Young blended tones on the signature riff, and the finger noise from those instruments \u2013 combined with light percussion from drummer Jerry Roe \u2013 created a scratch that makes it feel as if the musicians are in the room with the listener.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThat was kind of the idea about the record is that I wanted the vocal to feel more intimate, I wanted the guitars to feel more intimate,\u201d Dick notes. \u201cIt\u2019s just less things turned up louder.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThat aspect of the production spoke volumes to Dean. \u201cThat\u2019ll make the change in your truck door rattle,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s four-dimensional, and you can feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHe also embraced the space in the arrangement. The results are so unusual for the current fill-in-every-spot approach to production that it\u2019s almost subversive. \u201cIt\u2019s not when to play, but where not to play,\u201d Dean says. \u201cThat\u2019s all building tension and building payoff and creating moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDean hung some Navajo blankets to give the studio a little atmosphere when he sang the final vocal, and though the piece was fairly easy, he did find it challenging when he needed to bring the fire. \u201cThe only thing that gave me any trouble was the big note at the end of the chorus, the \u2018please\u2026\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s quite a tricky little line to do. It\u2019s full volume after you\u2019ve been full voice singing the chorus.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBig Machine released \u201cMake a Liar\u201d to country radio via PlayMPE on Nov. 8, two months in advance of the official Jan. 20 add date. \u201cLiar\u201d is a bit of an outlier, but here\u2019s a Pointer: it\u2019s a ligter outlier in his personal creative development, too. That was the intention. \u201cWe had been in an intense world a little bit with On the Back of my Dreams<\/em>,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a cool place to go.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.billboard.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In November 1978, The Pointer Sisters arrived on the Billboard Hot 100 with a bit of an outlier record that ultimately became the first top 10 single of their career. Explore See latest videos, charts and news The vocal group had been notably eclectic previously \u2013 they even won a country Grammy award and played […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2010122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[309228],"class_list":["post-2246317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-genre-country"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Melanie-Santiler-Cimafunks-Ese-Besito-Voted-Best-New-Latin-Music.gif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2246317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2246318,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246317\/revisions\/2246318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2010122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2246317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2246317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2246317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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