Based on a True Story...

Background

Although Shelton had already been a judge on The Voice for one season before the release of his 2011 album Red River Blue, Based on a True Story... was, according to Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic, the first album recorded by Shelton "since turning into a genuine crossover star thanks to his role on [that series]." Matt Bjorke of Roughstock noted that Based on a True Story... was also "the first album released by [Shelton] after his monumental CMA Entertainer of the Year award from 2012", which he felt led to the album having uniquely high expectations placed on it.

Content

Explaining the title of Based on a True Story... Shelton said, "I just think that every song on the album, I've either been in those situations before or I'm going through 'em right now. There’s songs like 'Doing What She Likes' and 'Ten Times Crazier' that are kind of where I’m at right now...I always feel like I cop out whenever I name an album after a song on the album. I always end up looking back going, 'Man, you wimped out there.' And so I listened to it and finally thought, 'Man, it kind of is my life, from start to finish.' I thought, 'That's just what we'll call it—we'll just say it's based on a true story.' And normally my ideas like that don't stick, but somehow that one got through."

The album mostly features upbeat songs, which Shelton acknowledged by saying, "Outside of a couple of ballads, it's a pretty light album...all these songs are kind of about this guy that's whipped. I really am happy, and it's coming through on the album." He contrasted this with his previous releases, saying, "I think that I’ve had those years where I made those type of [wistful] records, and I don’t want to now. Something will happen one of these days and it will be a part of my music again. But right now, everything’s pretty awesome."

The album's lead single, "Sure Be Cool If You Did", reached the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart faster than any of Shelton’s previous singles. Shelton described the song as indicative of where he wanted to be "going musically" and compared its production to that of songs by artists like Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, and Carrie Underwood.

The album's second single and opening track, "Boys 'Round Here", features Shelton's then wife, Miranda Lambert, as part of her musical group Pistol Annies. The song's vocals are credited to Shelton along with "Pistol Annies & Friends". Additional vocals on the track are by RaeLynn, who had been a contestant on The Voice, Scott Hendricks, who produced Based on a True Story, and the writers of "Boys 'Round Here", Rhett Akins, Dallas Davidson, and Craig Wiseman. Hendricks identified "Boys 'Round Here" as "probably [both his and Shelton's] favorite song on the record."

Shelton described the album's third single, "Mine Would Be You", as "one of the best songs" he ever recorded and said at the time of Based on a True Story...'s release that he associated the album's fourth single, "Doin' What She Likes", with his then-marriage to Lambert. The album's fifth single, "My Eyes", features Gwen Sebastian, who was mentored by Shelton on season two of The Voice. Before recording "My Eyes" with Shelton, Sebastian had toured with him as a background singer.

Critical reception

Based on a True Story… received mixed reviews from critics. At Metacritic, a website which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 from reviews by mainstream critics, it holds a rating of 64 based on 5 reviews.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic felt that Based on a True Story... represented a shift towards more mainstream sounds compared to the music recorded by Shelton earlier in his career, writing, "few other country albums of 2012-2013 are as unabashedly of the moment as this." He attributed the artistic direction of Based on a True Story... to Shelton's increasing popularity on The Voice. While he found Shelton's "big, swinging bravado" convincing throughout the album and conceded that "the very sense that more is more is essential to the appeal", he concluded that "there's just a little bit too much of the schtick; individually the cuts work fine but they overwhelm not only the gentler moments...but cancel each other out over the long run."

Suggesting that Shelton should have written on the album, Joseph Hudak of Country Weekly considered many of the songs to be lyrically uninspired and wrote that much of the album feels "rushed, as if The Voice coach hurriedly picked songs to record in Nashville before he had to catch his flight back to L.A." Nonetheless, Hudak wrote that the album "does have truly inspired moments." He praised the album's ballads, saying that those are where "Blake excels and the avowed smart aleck is found with his heart on his denim sleeve."

Concurring that the album comes across as rushed, Mikael Wood of the Los Angeles Times compared Based on a True Story... to Shelton's 2011 album Red River Blue, writing that both releases come across as though they were "recorded in the rear lounge of a private jet zooming back and forth between Nashville and L.A." He characterized the album's first two singles, "Sure Be Cool If You Did" and "Boys 'Round Here", as unremarkable and wrote that "Shelton's investment" in the album "seems about as minimal as possible", but wrote, "it’s a testament to [Shelton's] considerable charm that Based on a True Story … never feels like a con. With its easy rhymes and hummable choruses, the album doesn’t ask the listener to work any harder than Shelton himself is prepared to work."

In her review of the album for Entertainment Weekly, Melissa Maerz wrote that Shelton excels on the songs that "find him acting as Nashville’s cultural ambassador to Hollywood." She named "Boys 'Round Here" and "Small Town Big Time" as examples of this and complimented Shelton as "plenty charming on the funny songs" but felt that his attempts at serious and romantic songs were unsuccessful, writing, "Shelton’s just not a gravitas kind of guy, and the outdated production only makes it harder to take his songs seriously, especially with the talk-box-style guitar effects".

Commercial performance

The album debuted at No.1 on the Top Country Albums chart and No. 3 on the Billboard 200, selling 199,000 copies for the week. The album became the ninth best-selling album of 2013 in the United States, with 1,109,000 copies sold for the year. As of March 2015, the album has sold a total of 1.46 million copies in the United States. In 2016, it was certified double-platinum with sales of 2,000,000 units.

Personnel

Vocals

Musicians

Production

Studios

Recorded at Ocean Way (Nashville, Tennessee).

Overdubbed at Ocean Way Recording, Sound Emporium, Cinema Sauna, Villahona Resort, Riverview Back Porch Studio and Warner Bros. Studio B.

Mixed at Hound's Ear Studio (Franklin, Tennessee) and Blackbird Studio (Nashville, Tennessee).

Mastered at MasterMix (Nashville, Tennessee).