Easy Does It

At 34, Dylan Scott has a lot figured out. The “Can’t Have Mine (Find You a Girl)” hitmaker is married with children and has found his stride and his voice as an artist, too—so much so that he tells Apple Music he feels like he can take a laidback approach to making music. “The backbone of this whole deal is my family and my wife and my kids and my friends, and I don’t let too much stuff get to my head,” Scott says. “At this point of my career, it makes you more grateful for the wins and for what’s happening, so I don’t get too discouraged by things. The new album is called *Easy Does It* for a reason.” Of course, “easy” doesn’t mean lazy, and *Easy Does It* is Scott’s most ambitious project yet, digging into difficult themes like marriage and mortality while maintaining a spirit of love and hard-earned joy. The record opens with one of the bigger songs of Scott’s career thus far, the emotional and surprising “What He’ll Never Have.” An especially vulnerable song, the track finds Scott imagining what would happen to his family should he die unexpectedly, and hoping that someone who is at least “half the man” that he is would step in to care for his wife and children should the worst ever happen. Elsewhere, Scott dips back into lifelong love on the sweet and breezy “Till I Can’t, I Will” and pays tribute to small-town living on the nostalgic “This Town’s Been Too Good to Us.” Sonically, the record sounds almost timeless in its approach toward radio-friendly country pop, eschewing the hard-rock-influenced sound that’s so prevalent on current country charts in favor of sturdy songwriting, ironclad hooks, and relatable narratives.