9/15/09

Touch Tunes and Uncle Kracker's Happy Hour

Atlantic Records Taps TouchTunes
to Serve Up Uncle Kracker’s New Album Happy Hour

TouchTunes Features Sweepstakes for Fans to
Win a Bar Happy Hour Party for Friends

You make me dance like a fool
Forget how to breathe
Shine like gold, buzz like a bee
Just the thought of you can drive me wild
Ohh, you make me smile

--“Smile” from Happy Hour by Uncle Kracker


TouchTunes, the largest interactive out-of-home entertainment network in North America, has announced a partnership with Atlantic Records to promote Uncle Kracker’s much-anticipated new album Happy Hour (Top Dog Records/Atlantic Records). Happy Hour arrives at stores, at all digital retailers, and on TouchTunes digital jukeboxes September 15.

TouchTunes will advertise the Happy Hour album on digital jukebox screens nationwide and also invite fans to enter a custom on-screen sweepstakes for a chance to win their own happy hour party.

TouchTunes and Atlantic Records will award three lucky winners with a bar tab of $500 to host a happy hour with friends and family at their favorite TouchTunes bar. The deadline to enter the TouchTunes Uncle Kracker Happy Hour sweepstakes is September 28.

“Promoting Happy Hour on TouchTunes is a perfect vehicle to reach Uncle Kracker fans” said Vicki Saunders, vice president, digital media and music marketing, TouchTunes. “Our users love and look forward to their happy hours and Uncle Kracker’s Happy Hour will certainly be no different!”

Happy Hour is Uncle Kracker's fourth studio album and finds the Detroit native, whose real name is Matt Shafer, partnering with multiple Grammy Award-winning producer Rob Cavallo. Happy Hour is a breezy blend of country-flavored pop and rock and roll that showcases Uncle Kracker’s natural appeal as a likeable Everyman and also his considerable gifts as a songwriter. Though many know him from his early years as the DJ in Kid Rock's Twisted Brown Trucker Band, Uncle Kracker has had impressive success as a solo artist, enjoying multiplatinum success and a string of #1 hits, with “Follow Me, “Drift Away”, and “When The Sun Goes Down,” his collaboration with friend/country star Kenny Chesney.
An acclaimed songwriter, he’s racked up co-writing credits on some of Kid Rock's biggest hits, including "Bawitdaba," "Cowboy," "Forever," "Only God Knows Why," and 2008's No. 1 "All Summer Long."

On Happy Hour, Uncle Kracker's soulful drawl unspools over massively hooky choruses on feel-good songs like the buoyant first single "Smile," the hilarious SoCal-skewering "I Hate California," and the freewheeling "Good To Be Me," in which he sings about riding with the T-Top down in his Cutlass Supreme. Three songs about whom we shall call complicated women -- "California," "Hot Mess," and "My Girlfriend" -- highlight Uncle Kracker's playful humor and dead-on sense of satire, while "Corner Bar" takes a more thoughtful tone by addressing the current economic downturn ("A funny little thing we all call greed / Brought my hometown down to its knees"). Other standouts include a stirring cover of Bob Seger's classic "Main Street" and the lone acoustic ballad "Me Again."