All About Tonight is Shelton's second "Six Pak", a concept that he and his record label decided to experiment with in 2010 starting with Hillbilly Bone. Shelton said, "We're looking for ways to remind people that we still make albums, and there's still cool music that you may or may not hear on the radio. So we decided to do a six-song album, and it's really cheap! It's like five dollars and change".[2]
Content[]
In an interview with "The Boot", Rhett Akins talked about the title track, a song he co-wrote along with Ben Hayslip and Dallas Davidson, saying "We decided that we wanted to write a song about how we just don't care about tomorrow because tomorrow can wait until tomorrow ... it's all about tonight! It's a good, fun party song about where the night is going to go. After we wrote it, we thought it sounds just like a Blake Shelton song".[3]
Upon its release, All About Tonight received generally positive reviews from most music critics.[10] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 71, based on 5 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".[10]
Jon Caramanica with The New York Times said that the release is "a variety-pack of country styles" and said he sounded "flirty and convincing" on the release.[8] Thom Jurek with Allmusic gave it a three star rating, saying "Shelton does two things, and he does them extremely well: rowdy, rocking contemporary tunes about raising hell and making romantic mischief, and singing (mostly) believable ballads".[4] Gary Graff with Billboard gave it a favorable review, saying "the singer's latest set, All About Tonight, is a satisfying sprint without fat or filler but packs plenty of fun."[6] Bill Friskics-Warren with The Washington Post gave it a favorable review, saying "Shelton's latest "six pak" harks back to a time when Nashville rebels could be rowdy and real at the same time".[9]
Matt Popkin with American Songwriter gave it a 2½ star rating, comparing it to a comedy series saying "Blake Shelton’s All About Tonight is what I imagine being in the studio audience for an average sitcom would be like [...] And yes, you’re aware that somebody worked very hard on these jokes, but still, every time you laugh, you feel like a little part of you just died, and it’s located in the left hemisphere of your brain.[5]
Commercial performance[]
The album debuted at number six on the U.S. Billboard 200, and at number one on the U.S. BillboardTop Country Albums, selling 33,000 copies in its first week of release.[11] The number one debut on the Top Country Albums chart gave Shelton his first number one album of his career.[12] As of the chart dated January 8, 2011, the album has sold 149,385 copies in the US.[13]
