A Country Bro With a Soft Heart

It’s not even a week into June and already: Sunburn. Tucker Wetmore is, to my ear, the most promising of what I feel like calling neo-bro country. We’re really in the 2.0 of a movement that started over a decade ago when a lot of male singers in Nashville were preoccupied with hip-hop and really were looking at women primarily as objects. Tucker seems to be embracing the broad picture of that sound while also remaining a bit sensitive and emo. He’s a himbo with feelings. His new single is called “Sunburn.” It’s about going off to play a festival somewhere incredibly sunny. Planning to stay for a night. Finding yourself unexpectedly entangled. And then you lose a week. Happens to the best of us. This is Tucker’s second excellent single in a row. The last one was called, “Brunette.” Really paints him as almost something of a naïf getting chewed up and spit out by a woman. “Sunburn” is a little more melancholy. It’s simple. As we’ve talked about before on this show, country music, sort of, continues to have a problem with women. But Tucker Wetmore seems to be trying to walk a very fine line, playing up his natural charms, even making himself an object of attraction, while on the other hand, letting people know that on the other side of that handsome face is a man full of respect. Frequent stops. Maintain distance. Good relationship advice.