Following the success of Hunt's debut album Montevallo, released in 2014,[7] Hunt sporadically released several singles[8][9] while delaying his second studio album.[10][11] In the years between, he released the massive hit "Body Like a Back Road",[citation needed] "Downtown's Dead",[12] as well as the track "Drinkin' Too Much".[13] Hunt gave little details on when his second album would be released until the release of "Kinfolks" in October 2019,[14] when he stated the full album would be released in 2020 and followed it up with the release of the track "Sinning with You" in January 2020.[15] In February 2020, Hunt finally revealed the album title Southside as well as an April 2020 release date.[4] The track "Hard to Forget" was soon released to coincide with the beginning of pre-orders,[16] and was later announced to be the next single.[17]
Southside was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album holds an average score of 72 based on six reviews.[18]
Writing for Rolling Stone, Jon Freeman highlighted the "thread of sensitivity" in Southside and opined that the album made Hunt "a crossover star."[23] Chris DeVille of Stereogum positively compared the album to Montevallo, praising how the former contains "ever more adventurous packaging and a more seasoned perspective".[26] In concurrence, Pitchfork's Natalie Weiner stated that the album "shows a clarity of purpose that his debut lacked" while also praising Hunt's "enviably organic" way of threading "the country/hip-hop needle".[22] In a mixed review, Seth Wilson of Slant Magazine took note of the album's "ingratiating charm" but criticized its lyrical content.[24]Robert Christgau awarded the album an A− grade in his online subscription letter praising in particular Hunt's "way with words" prevailing throughout the record, citing the chorus of 'Body Like a Back Road' as an example of his words cherishing "the American vernacular that imbues great pop songwriting from Irving Berlin to Jay-Z in a Nashville dialect that recalls John Prine".[27]
Southside debuted at number five on the US Billboard 200, opening with 46,000 album-equivalent units, including 18,000 pure album sales. It earned the third-largest streaming week for a country album, and is Hunt's second US top-10 album.[33]
^Southside (CD booklet). Southside. MCA Records Nashville. 2020. B0031776-02.((cite AV media notes)): CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)