Tyler Childers: One Part of His New Album Is Dividing Fans

By John Connor Coulston

Tyler Childers, one of the greatest artists working in country music today, returned with a new album on Sept. 30. The record, titled Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?, is seen as a return to form, of sorts, for Childers, after his previous album, 2020's Long Violent History, consisted of mainly fiddle instrumentals. The new album, Childers' fifth LP, was set to be a doozy for the singer's diehard hards, as it's a triple album. However, it's not exactly a wide-spanning opus getting universal acclaim. In fact, one-third of the record is totally dividing listeners.

Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? is a triple-LP, but it actually one set of songs imagined in three different arrangements. The eight songs were recorded in three different ways: a "Hallelujah" version, a "Jubilee" version and a "Joyful Noise" version. While the first two parts of the project are more in line with the singer-songwriter's previous efforts, the "Joyful Noise" portion is a total departure. These are electronic remixes that focus more on loops and vocal samples than any sort of traditional country music or southern rock sound. 

This out-there creative choice for Childers is not for everyone. Sme fans with a wider musical palette dig the "Joyful Noise" versions as an interesting experiment in a genre that doesn't often venture of the box in this way. Fans hoping for a more traditional sound — many of whom had speculated that "Joyful Nouse" was an acoustic version of Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? — were less thrilled, with reactions online ranging from confusion to fury. Scroll through to read through some of the wide-ranging reactions to Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven?'s "Joyful Noise" portion.

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"Tyler Childers new album is very good although The joyful noise section did not make me joyful, it made me very joyless in fact," one fan wrote.

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"im sorry Tyler Childers but the joyful noise versions are absolutely foul," a second displeased fan tweeted. A fan on Reddit remarked, "Joyful noise will probably not see any play from me."

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"The jubilee and hallelujah versions aren't completely terrible, just depends on the song I suppose there, but the joyful noise versions, like what was he thinking?" another Redditor wrote. "I really wish he would've done the songs in the style that he used to do at live shows."

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On the more positive side of the debate, one fan tweeted, "I may very well be in the minority here, but Joyful Noise is my favorite of the three versions of Tyler Childers' new album."

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"Tyler Childers can I take my hounds to heaven joyful noise version is nothing but an absolute masterpiece and if you disagree you're simply wrong and i will argue about it," another enthusiastic listener wrote.

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"I'm highly amused by the amount of people that are gonna be mad about the joyful noise version of this Tyler Childers record," another person tweeted. "He really is just doing whatever he wants and I am here for it!"

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