Nick Carter Seeks to Send a Message With His Cover of “Dirty Laundry”

Nick loves to give us surprises. Out of nowhere this morning, two days before his album release for Love Life Tragedy which you can pre-save here, decided to drop another music video. This one was for a song he’d been covering off and on throughout his Who I Am Tour, Don Henley’s song Dirty Laundry.

This is one I’d been itching for since he started singing it on tour. When he teased previews of the song in the recording studio last year? I was all over it. This song, well there’s some very valid reasons he picked this to record out of all the eighties tracks he could’ve done. Nick has always had a passion for the music of that decade. Why this one song? Rather than go into why he chose that song, because it’s really not worth our time, I’m gonna leave you with the very words he’d say on tour.

“If you really listen real close to these lyrics, sometimes as an artist you just have something to say but you can’t say it…but you can say it in a song.”

That’s what I want you guys to do here. I really want you to pull a me, pull a Rose this time and go deep diving into this song. Listen to Nick singing it, really hear what he’s saying. There’s a message here and as Nick’s been saying all along with this album, he’s got something to say. You can hear it in his voice too, really. Just how badly he wants to get it out there.

Dirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers
In everybody’s pie
Love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry

We can do the innuendo
We can dance and sing
When it’s said and done
We haven’t showed you a thing
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry

“Let The Music Speak.” It says it right on his Twitter profile.

Listening to the song itself, he immediately differentiates his version from the cover but not in a bad way. He leans more into the rock potential of the song, giving it a more updated feel but also a very Nick feel. In some ways I almost wish he’d gone harder on the vocals but in other ways I’m glad he didn’t. He strikes a good balance on making it his own while also giving a true nod to the original. He has fun with his take on the classic, and keeps it feeling light, funky and danceable as a bright contrast to the lyrics. I love when Nick lets his voice get a little gritty and he does what we know him best for as a solo artist here. Ironically enough, we hadn’t seen much of this side of Nick on his solo releases this era so far so it’s a breath of fresh air.

Now, about the video. I always told myself with content creating I’d be honest with what I post. I’m going to do so here. I think there’s some missed potential here. I know he had fun making this with Ashba. I do. He looks great while he’s there too. But I think there’s some definite missed opportunities of what he could’ve done instead to make the video just as impactful as the song. I don’t know what I expected with the music video, but this wasn’t quite it. And that’s okay. I’m just one girl who likes to do lots of deep dives on the content we get. So I’m sure something else to come will suit me. In fact he’s already said on an Instagram Live today he wants to do another music video after the comic episodes he plans to release as a visual story for this album.

Nick really spoils us, doesn’t he? We love to see it.

I’ll say this, once this song is out on streaming platforms I plan to have it on repeat.