Blake Shelton's 'Sure Be Cool If You Did'

Blake Shelton's new single, "Sure Be Cool If You Did" (Warner Bros., shows exactly how "The Voice" coach-judge manages to maintain his country cred while wading into the mainstream. He gives the distinctly non-Nashville verses so much earnestness that "I was gonna keep it real like chill, like, gonna have a drink or two" sounds genuine. Then Shelton hammers home the big chorus, awash in pedal steel guitar, and the country-pop-rock hybrid he and so many of his contemporaries have been successfully using to build empires.