Too old for that. Obviously every country fan has had to hear someone complain about how every country song is the same: “It’s all driving down a dirt road in your pickup truck with a girl in her cutoff jeans.” That unfortunate perception of country music was driven by the “bro-country” trend of the 2010s, which really took off after Florida Georgia Line had a massive hit with “Cruise” in 2012. That led to monster hits like “That’s My Kind of Night” by Luke Bryan, “Chillin’ It” by Cole Swindell, “Truck Yeah” by Tim McGraw, and of course, several entries from Jason Aldean like “Burnin’ It Down” and “Take A Little Ride.” Of course “bro-country” became a derisive label to dismiss that genre (and in some cases the entire era) of country music, and those songs eventually fell out of favor as country music became more songwriter driven – thanks in no small part to the meteoric rise of Chris Stapleton. Some artists were able to adapt to the changing landscape, while others struggled to keep up and tried to cling onto bro-country’s dying corpse. Jason Aldean, meanwhile, admits that he’s too old to be singing about driving through the mud in his truck these days. During an appearance on the Try That In A Small Town podcast, which is hosted by the co-writers of his #1 song by the same name, Aldean spoke about what he looks for in songs that he decides to record now that he’s two decades into his career: “I want it to be something cool. I want it to be something fun. I want it to be something that’s going to live on for a while. It’s like, I can put on an old Hank Junior record or old Alabama record, that’s like the stuff’s still cool now. 40 years later, it’s still badass. I think for us, it’s like making songs that will stand the test of time like that too, that we can always go out and play, you know, as we get older.” Aldean says that he’s not looking for the same type of songs he was recording early in his career: “When people are pitching us songs and stuff now, it’s like, you know, don’t pitch me a song about riding around in the mud with your truck. We did that when I was 28. You know what I mean? I’m like, I just turned 49.” In explaining what he’s looking for in new music these days, Aldean cites songs like “Trouble With a Heartbreak,” “Try That In A Small Town” and “Whiskey Drink” as more along the lines of songs he wants to release: “Things that just a little more meat on the bone with the lyric stuff. And too, it’s like as we get older we want to go play songs that resonate with like our fan base that’s believable. We’re not up there trying to sing these super young lyrics that kind of don’t make sense for us anymore.” Yeah, it doesn’t make sense for a 50-year-old to be singing about girls with “denim cut so high you can see the pockets” or something like that. Who would even want to do that? It’s nice that Aldean realizes he needed to move away from many of the tropes of the “bro-country” era, whether it was because he aged out of the genre or because country music itself moved away from those kinds of songs. I know he gets a lot of hate for his role in the “bro-country” debacle, but Aldean also has a lot of great songs from early in his career, songs like “The Truth,” “Why,” “Fly Over States” and even deep cuts like “Too Fast” and “Don’t Give Up On Me.” His new music is definitely trending more in that “Old Aldean” direction, and though there are still plenty of pop elements in the production that might turn off fans of more traditional country, it’s a decided and welcome improvement over songs like “Burnin’ It Down” and “Just Gettin’ Started.” The post Jason Aldean Says He’s Moved On From Songs About Riding Around In Trucks: “Did That When I Was 28” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.