This came out in 2005 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Before Toby Keith emerged as country music’s redneck poster boy thanks to jingoistic post-9/11 tripe like Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American), he was just another fair-to-middlin’ guitar-picker with a sandy throat and the usual slate of heartbreak ballads and upbeat twosteppers.
And now that the rabble no longer need rousing, Keith returns to his old self on the personable and personal Honkytonk University. Aside from a pandering shout-out to his “boys in Afghanistan and Baghdad,” this pointedly apolitical album ignores foreign affairs to focus on homegrown tales of falling in and out of love. Perhaps it’s a little too focused. Lyrically, these dozen tracks can be painfully repetitive — time and again, Keith is either watching his woman pack up and go or hanging out in a bar picking up a new one.
That said, the autobiographically nostalgic title cut is a keeper, and there’s enough twangy, winking honkytonk to earn nods for tracks like You Ain’t Leavin’ (Thank God Are Ya) and She Left Me (see what I mean?). But even if Honkytonk University is kinda one-dimensional and definitely lightweight, it still beats jingoistic tripe any day of the week.
