"Perfect Storm" is a song recorded 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, ...

artist

Brad Paisley Bradley Douglas Paisley (born October 28, 1972) is an American country music singer and songwriter. Starting with his 1999 debut album ''Who Needs Pictures'', he has released eleven studio albums and a Christmas compilation on the Arista Nashvil ...

. It was released on September 1, 2014, by

Arista Nashville Arista Nashville is an American record label that serves as a wholly owned division of Sony Music, operated under the Sony Music Nashville division. Founded in 1989, the label specializes in country music artists, including Alan Jackson, Brooks & ...

as the second single from his tenth studio album, '' Moonshine in the Trunk''. He co-wrote the song with

Lee Thomas Miller Lee Thomas Miller (born in Nicholasville, Kentucky) is an American country music songwriter and occasional record producer. His credits include 7 number one country hits: "The Impossible" (Joe Nichols), "The World", "I'm Still a Guy" and "Perfect ...

and co-produced it with Luke Wooten.

Content

The song is a love ballad musically driven mainly by

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 ...

and also featuring a prominent

steel guitar A steel guitar ( haw, kīkākila) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conve ...

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 ...

and a

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 ...

. Paisley said he wanted the guitar part to sound like thunder. Lyrically, the singer describes the girl he loves as a "perfect storm."

Critical reception

Deborah Evans Price of ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' said ''Perfect Storm'' is "one of those love songs that says what women want to hear and what men wish they could say" and added that "it's a tender ballad ..and it's got the word "hit" written all over it". ''

Taste Of Country Townsquare Media, Inc. (formerly Regent Communications until 2010) is an American radio network and media company based in Purchase, New York. The company started in radio and expanded into digital media toward the end of the 2000s, starting wi ...

'' gave the single a favorable review, stating that "Paisley’s stellar guitar skills are on full display here, creating a storm of powerful riffs all their own" and the song is just "as complex and beautiful as the girl Paisley is singing about". Giving the song four and a half stars out of five, Dan Devour of ''Music Trespass'' said "the song is about that perfect girl that you can meet and fall in love with suddenly." He also states that its lyrics "show that Brad must have been in love recently."

Music video

The music video was directed by Jim Shea and premiered in October 2014. In it, Paisley and his band play the song in the pouring rain while wind throws photos of Paisley's female fans all around them.

Chart performance

The song was first released on August 5, 2014 as a promotional single and charted at number 45 on the

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

chart. After its release as an official single, the song debuted at number 52 on the

Country Airplay Country Airplay is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States since January 20, 1990. This chart lists the 60 most-listened-to records played on 150 mainstream country radio stations across the country as monitored ...

chart, and re-entered the Hot Country Songs chart at number 42. On the Country Airplay chart dated January 17, 2015, it became Paisley's nineteenth number one single, and his first since " Remind Me" in September 2011. It would be his last number one until seven years later, when he topped the chart again as a featured artist on

Jimmie Allen James Edward Allen (born June 18, 1985) is an American country music singer and songwriter. He is signed to Broken Bow Records imprint Stoney Creek, for which he has released the two singles "Best Shot" and " Make Me Want To" and the 2018 album ...

's "

Freedom Was a Highway "Freedom Was a Highway" is a song recorded by American country music singers Jimmie Allen and Brad Paisley, released on February 1, 2021 as the second single from Allen's second studio album ''Bettie James Gold Edition''. Allen co-wrote the song w ...

" in February 2022. "Perfect Storm" peaked at number four on the Hot Country Songs chart, Paisley's highest peaking single on that chart since the methodology of ranking the songs was changed in 2012. It brought his total of Top 10 hits to 32. The song was also Paisley's first single to hit number one on Billboard's Canada Country chart. It has sold 357,000 copies in the U.S. as of February 2015. Sales figure give
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Year-end charts

References

{{Brad Paisley singles 2014 songs 2014 singles Country ballads 2010s ballads Brad Paisley songs Songs written by Brad Paisley Songs written by Lee Thomas Miller Arista Nashville singles