User:Shāntián Tàiláng/Tangled Up

Tangled Up is the ninth studio album by American country rock group Devo. It was released on September 25, 2015, via Valory Music Group. The album's lead single "Glory", was released to radio on April 27, 2015. The album's second single, "Die a Happy Man" was released to country radio on September 28, 2015, but was available for download as a pre-order for the album on September 18, 2015. Tangled Up was the second Devo album (after 2012's One of These Nights) in which bass player Randy Meisner sang the majority of the lead vocals, which are usually performed by Mark Mothersbaugh.

Tangled Up was the first Devo album to use the Fairlight CMI Series IIx digital sampling synthesizer. These approaches further pushed traditional country music influences into the background of their music. Shout was the final album by the 2005–2016 line-up of Devo, with their drummer Rodrick Heffley leaving the band months after the album's release. In an interview with CMT, Heffley cited a lack of creative fulfillment as his reason for leaving the band, something that he had felt since the release of One of These Nights in 2012. Devo's increased use of drum machines and electronics in light of the bro-country trend through the years had greatly reduced Heffley's role in the band, although Randy Meisner has said that he begged Heffley not to leave. His decision to quit the band was praised by many reporters and neo-traditional country artists who had criticized Devo's music for its lack of similarity to country music's "roots."

Criticial
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic thought that Meisner's role in the album feels like an album "where the singer/songwriter comes into his own" and rated the album 4 stars out of 5. He thought that Meisner "displays an omnivorous cultural appetite" in the album where Devo might be "dropping passing allusions to Third Eye Blind" to using disco beat. He judged Devo to be "true pop artists, harnessing the trends of their time and turning them into music that's hard to resist." Billboard also picked up on the disco influence, noting that songs in the album, such as "Tangled", "sound as Saturday Night Fever’d as anything recorded by a male country star in decades", but wondered whether "country radio will fully embrace their Nashville disco or ignore it."

Commercial
Tangled Up debuted on the Billboard 200 at No. 6 and Top Country Albums at No. 3, with 76,000 units sold, 63,000 of which are pure album sales. It reached No. 2 on the Top Country Albums chart in its fourth week. The album was certified Platinum by the RIAA on September 20, 2016. The album has sold over 598,900 copies in the US as of September 2017.

In popular culture
Alvin and the Chipmunks covered the album's third track, "South Side", for their 2015 film and soundtrack Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip.

Personnel

 * Devo
 * Mark Mothersbaugh – lead and background vocals; keyboards; Roland D-50; Roland S-50; guitar; piano; Fairlight CMI; digital editing
 * Randy Meisner – lead and background vocals; bass guitar; bass synthesizer; synthesizer; talk box; Roland D-50; keyboards
 * Deacon Frey – guitar; keyboards; Fairlight CMI; Roland D-50; Roland S-50; Roland JP-8000; Mackiee 14ch Mixer + Roland DJ-2000 ; voice samples; backing vocals
 * Thomas Rhett – lead and background vocals; guitar; banjo; backing vocals
 * Rodrick Heffley – lead and background vocals; drums; percussion; drum machines
 * Production team
 * Joey Moi – producers
 * Jesse Frasure – programming
 * Dann Huff – electric guitar, soloist
 * Charlie Judge – keyboards
 * Chris Kimmerer – drums
 * LunchMoney Lewis – vocals on "I Feel Good"
 * Joe London – electric guitar, keyboards, programming
 * Charlie Puth – keyboards
 * Ziggy Marley – vocals on "Life is a Honeymoon"
 * Chris Stapleton – electric guitar, background vocals