''If I'm Honest'' is the tenth studio album by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

singer

Blake Shelton Blake Tollison Shelton (born June 18, 1976) is an American country music singer and television personality. In 2001, he made his debut with the single " Austin". The lead-off single from his self-titled debut album, "Austin" spent five weeks at ...

. It was released on May 20, 2016 via Warner Bros. Nashville. The album was produced by Shelton's longtime producer

Scott Hendricks Scott Hendricks (born July 26, 1956) is an American record producer who has produced over 30 country music artists. His productions have garnered 121 Top 10s, and 78 Number One hits. Between 1995 and 1997, he was President and Chief Executive Off ...

and features collaborations with

Gwen Stefani Gwen Renée Stefani (; born October 3, 1969) is an American singer, songwriter, fashion designer and actress. She is a co-founder, lead vocalist, and the primary songwriter of the band No Doubt, whose singles include "Just a Girl", "Spiderwebs ...

and

The Oak Ridge Boys The Oak Ridge Boys are an American country and gospel vocal quartet originating in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The group was founded in the 1940s as the Oak Ridge Quartet. They became popular in Southern gospel during the 1950s. Their name was chang ...

Background

According to Shelton the album is very personal and addresses his high and lows of 2015. One of the album's tracks, "Green", was previously included on Shelton's 2008 album ''

Startin' Fires ''Startin' Fires'' is the fifth studio album by American country music singer Blake Shelton. The album was released on November 18, 2008 via Warner Bros. Nashville. Its lead-off single, "She Wouldn't Be Gone", became Shelton's fifth number one h ...

''. The album's tenth track "Friends", is the theme song to the 2016 film ''

The Angry Birds Movie ''The Angry Birds Movie'' (also known simply as ''Angry Birds'') is a 2016 computer-animated comedy film based on Rovio Entertainment's video game series of the same name, produced by Columbia Pictures and Rovio Animation, and distributed by S ...

'', which was released on the same day as the album. The song is also featured on its corresponding soundtrack.

Singles

"Came Here to Forget" is the album's first single, and it was released on March 8, 2016. The song debuted at number one on the Country Digital Chart and has sold 136,000 copies as of March 2016. The second single from the album, "Savior's Shadow", was released on April 8, 2016. This song impacted

Christian radio Christian radio is a Christian media radio format that focus on programming with a Christian message. Many such broadcasters play contemporary Christian music, though many programs include sermons, radio dramas, as well as news and talk progra ...

on April 11, 2016 in addition to the country format. "She's Got a Way with Words" was released on June 6, 2016 as the album's third overall and second promotional single. "A Guy with a Girl" became the album's fourth single on September 26, 2016. "Every Time I Hear That Song" was released as the fifth and final single on February 20, 2017.

Critical reception

'' If I'm Honest '' was met with generally mixed reviews. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 58, based on 5 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Stephen Thomas Erlewine Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occ ...

of ''

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

'' wrote that the album "is at its core a balladeer's record," and that Shelton pulls off "these romance tunes with a sly, masculine grace that complements the album's sleek modern surfaces." Jim Farber of ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...

'' stated that, "What's more: the album’s breezy Nashville-pop tunes never strike below the surface. Small wonder the toss-off songs seem more credible." ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

''s Keith Harris reported that "Shelton's warmly confident delivery makes those romantic twists and turns sound both lived in but universal". Glenn Gamboa of ''

Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...

'' opined that the bulk of the album "is a mix of letting old relationships go and starting new ones." In a review for the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'', Mikael Wood suggests in the home of country music, "the default setting is polished professionalism; rawness actually takes time. And here Shelton seldom pushes beyond that finesse to reach something less smooth." Erik Ernst, writing for ''

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel The ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'' is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it is the primary newspaper. It is also the largest newspaper in the state of Wisconsin, where it is widely distributed. It is currently o ...

'', opines that "this disc's balance of modern verve, emotional introspection and country inflection is where Shelton is supposed to be." In its review for ''

Consequence of Sound ''Consequence'' (previously ''Consequence of Sound'') is an independently owned New York-based online magazine featuring news, editorials, and reviews of music, movies, and television. In addition, the website also features the Festival Outlook ...

'', Janine Schaults commented that "The Country pop star's post-breakup album flounders under too many glitzy, cheesy pop flourishes." Chuck Campbell from the ''

Knoxville News Sentinel The ''Knoxville News Sentinel, also known as Knox News,'' is a daily newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, owned by the Gannett Company. History The newspaper was formed in 1926 from the merger of two competing newspapers: ''The ...

'' said that "Blake Shelton sounds more like a savvy marketer than any kind of artist".

Commercial performance

The album debuted at No. 3 on U.S. ''Billboard'' 200 chart, selling 153,000 copies (170,000 album equivalent units) during its first week. It also debuted at No. 1 the Top Country Albums chart. The album was certified Gold by the RIAA on August 23, 2016. It became the eleventh best-selling album of 2016 in the United States with over 522,000 copies sold that year. As of November 2017, the album has sold 627,300 copies in the U.S.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of the standard edition of ''If I'm Honest''. *

– lead vocals *Roy Agee –

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...

Duane Allen Duane David Allen (born April 29, 1943) is an American singer/songwriter who had formal training in both operatic and quartet singing before becoming a member of The Oak Ridge Boys in 1966. Allen is the lead singer for the quartet and is hear ...

– background vocals *Hari Bernstein –

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

*Jessica Blackwell –

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

Joe Bonsall Joseph Sloan Bonsall Jr. (born May 18, 1948) is an American singer who has been the tenor of the country/gospel vocal quartet The Oak Ridge Boys since October 1973. He is also an author. Besides charting numerous hits as a member of the Oak Rid ...

– background vocals *

Tom Bukovac Tom Bukovac is an American session musician and producer. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in nearby Willowick, Ohio. He has been a Nashville-based musician since 1992. He previously owned 2nd Gear, a used music consignment shop in Sou ...

–

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

*Perry Coleman – background vocals *Paul DiGiovanni – programming *Charles Dixon –

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

* Paul Franklin –

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...

William Lee Golden William Lee Golden (born January 12, 1939) is an American country music singer. Between 1965 and 1987, and again since December 1995, he has been the baritone singer in the country vocal group The Oak Ridge Boys. Career Golden joined The Oak Rid ...

– background vocals *

Aubrey Haynie Aubrey Haynie (born March 27, 1974) is an American bluegrass musician who plays the fiddle and mandolin. In his career, he has recorded three studio albums for the Sugar Hill Records label, all three of which contained mostly songs that he wr ...

–

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

*Steve Herrmann –

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

*Wes Hightower – background vocals *Jim Horn –

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

*Charlie Judge – string arrangements,

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

*Troy Lancaster – electric guitar *Tony Lucido –

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

Gordon Mote Gordon James Mote (born October 25, 1970) is an American Christian country/ southern gospel singer, piano virtuoso, and worship leader. He was born blind. He has released eight studio albums. His album ''Don't Let Me Miss the Glory'' (2007) was ...

–

Hammond B-3 organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

*Emily Nelson – cello *Russ Pahl – pedal steel guitar *

Jimmie Lee Sloas Jimmie Lee Sloas is an American session musician, producer, and songwriter, who plays bass guitar. History Jimmie Lee Sloas, born in Ashland, Kentucky, grew up in Fairborn, Ohio and Isonville, Kentucky. His father, Dave, was a member of the p ...

– bass guitar *

– guest vocals *

Richard Sterban Richard Anthony Sterban (born April 24, 1943) is an American singer. He was born in Camden, New Jersey. In 1973, he joined the country and gospel quartet The Oak Ridge Boys, in which he sings bass. Personal life Born in Camden, New Jersey, Ster ...

– background vocals *

Bryan Sutton Bryan Sutton is an American musician. Primarily known as a flatpicking acoustic guitar player, Sutton also plays mandolin, banjo, ukulele, and electric guitar. He also sings and writes songs. Biography Early career Sutton's grandfather and ...

–

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

Ilya Toshinsky Bering Strait was a Russian country music band, whose style was sometimes called "redgrass". In 2003, the band was nominated for a Grammy Award and appeared on the TV show ''60 Minutes''. The group disbanded in 2006. The lineup on their first alb ...

– acoustic guitar *Derek Wells – acoustic guitar, electro-acoustic guitar *

Nir Z NIR or Nir may refer to: Science and technology * Near-infrared, a region within the infrared part of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum * Near-infrared spectroscopy, a spectroscopic method that uses the near-infrared region (from 780 nm to 25 ...

. –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

, programming

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Release history

References

{{Authority control 2016 albums Blake Shelton albums Warner Records albums Albums produced by Scott Hendricks