This is much better than Lambert’s other hit from the Platinum album, “Somethin’ Bad”, but it’s oddly sentimental and inoffensive for the edgy, daring Country firebrand whose nickname is ‘The Pink Pistol’. I mean, when you see a Miranda Lambert song titled “Automatic”, the first place your mind goes is not a soft, nostalgic ballad about the downside of technological progress. And unlike “The House That Built Me” or most of the material on her next album, The Weight of These Wings, it doesn’t really capture the naked emotional honesty that characterizes her work either. And while it’s certainly a pretty song, the lyrics are a kind of neo-Luddite yearning for a return to the exact level of technological sophistication that Lambert grew up with, such as cassette tapes and stick shifts, which when you think about it is kind of arbitrary, even hypocritical. By the standards of the Country scene at the time, which was dominated by meatheaded party anthems, I suppose it qualified as somewhat above average, but I can’t help but feel Lambert was capable of better than this.
Verdict: All right, I guess, but still somewhat disappointing.