Lady Antebellum: at Schermerhorn Symphony Center (Nashville, TN) Mon. December 3, 2012

Lady Antebellum

Nashville Scene Critic's Pick …

You don’t have to be a huge fan of Lady Antebellum’s pop-country approach to appreciate their achievement, which means you don’t have to love the slickness of modern country music to get off on the craft and calculation that goes into it.One of the biggest groups on the planet, Lady Antebellum specializes in a canny reworking of ’70s and early ’80s adult-contemporary pop — “When You’ve Got a Good Thing Going,” from their Need You Now full-length, features a rock guitar solo that says as much about the song’s mixture of optimism and defeat as anything in the singing or the lyrics.I also like the stagger-step guitar riff that powers the 2008 song “Lookin’ for a Good Time,” an up-tempo number that concisely embodies the post-power-pop, post-country rock Lady Antebellum delivers.They recently released On This Winter’s Night, a Christmas collection.

—Edd Hurt