Thomas Cole wrote a whole song about not shaving, and somehow it works better than it has any right to.
“Stubble,” out now, opens with the kind of chorus that gets stuck whether you want it there or not. You will catch yourself humming it before you have even learned the actual words, which is usually a good sign the hook is doing its job. But the song is not just built to be catchy, there is something underneath the bar flirting and the playful lyrics that feels a lot more honest than the setup suggests.
“Everyone has a story they survived,” Cole says about the track. “The stubble is simply the evidence.” That is really the whole idea in one line. Cole has built a career writing about confidence that does not come from being polished, and here he takes something most guys shave off without thinking twice and turns it into proof of having lived a little. The song is about noticing someone because of their rough edges, not despite them.
Electropoint handled production, and it shows in the best way. The track sits in the upbeat electro pop and dance space Cole is known for, but there is a thin layer of country running underneath it that keeps things from feeling too slick, plus a bass line on the chorus that hits harder than the song’s bounce lets on at first.
A music video dropped alongside the single, matching the same charm and energy the track carries on its own. “Stubble” is silly on the surface and a little sincere underneath, and Cole seems perfectly comfortable letting both things be true at once.
Photo Credit: Thomas Cole.
