Seems to me we’ve recently had quite a few significant
battles for #1 lately, plus some battles for multiple-week-stays at #1. We’re
also seeing a battle for who will dominate the charts – superstars or a mix
that includes some newcomers. In addition, we’re about to see some major
battles for #1 song of the year. So now’s a good time to borrow the Thompson
Square song title and take a look:

George Strait Denied A
Good Time, Falling Short Of 45^th
Billboard #1 Song. This battle occupied a lot of hours of chart
prognosticators everywhere. Here’s a quick review: After a surprising slowdown
in the teens, which looked as if it had ruined George’s chances to take his
lead single Here For A Good Time to
the top, the song suddenly regained momentum and appeared to be solidly ahead
of its only serious competitor, Blake Shelton’s God Gave Me You. Until the 10/8 chart, in fact, there was plenty of
reason to believe that Blake was content to follow George to the top – maybe
even to drink a toast to George’s 45^th at the King’s #1 party
sometime this fall.

But that’s not how it played out. Yes, George rode his huge
points lead to an easy #1 week over on the Mediabase/Aircheck chart. But the
race on Billboard, a much closer one, did not result in an appearance at #1 for
HFA Good Time. In a battle taking
place quietly, well behind the #1 appearances of Toby Keith and Keith Urban,
first Blake overtook George; then, he barely held on to the lead in the face of
a big rally; and in the end, God
outlasted Good by only 100,000
impressions for the #1 slot on 10/29. (That’s only a handful of spins. George
seemed to be gaining all week, but a big last-day push won the top spot for
Blake and focused George’s fans on the elusiveness of the landmark 50^th
#1 hit.)

Blake’s still on top, about to mark his third week at #1.
And George is not pausing to lick his wounds – that’s not like him anyway. His
new release is already on the chart.

2. Where Will The
Year’s Craziest Chart Run End? I
hadn’t thought until a couple of months ago that the topics “#1 Country Song”
and “Eli Young Band” would ever intersect. A solid Texas band that had a few
songs land on the Billboard country chart, Eli Young Band had never had a BB
top 10 (although Always The Love Songs
got there on Mediabase) until Crazy Girl
came along. But in its 30^th chart week, Crazy Girl made it into the top 10 and it has continued to climb
despite its longevity. (See below for a reason this is a suitable
“slow-climber.”) Now it’s all the way up to #2, but still 3.5 million
impressions behind that same old Strait-denying Blake Shelton hit God Gave Me
You. Can EYB manage to do what the veteran of 30 years’ chart success couldn’t?

3. Three Things You Should Know About Crazy Girl and Eli Young Band. Thing
one: they’re really good. If you’ve only heard their radio material, and you’d
like to hear something else, listen to Even
If It Breaks Your Heart and see what you think.

Thing two: 92% of country music fans think there must be
someone named Eli Young in this band. No, sorry, there is a Zac Brown but
there’s no Eli Young. There’s a Mike Eli and a James Young – coincidence? Maybe
not. My goal is that only 91% of country music fans will think there’s an Eli
Young by year’s end.

Thing three: it would be a nice coincidence if Crazy Girl lasts 40+ weeks on the chart:
one of its co-writers is Lee Brice. And Lee has the distinction of singing the
longest-running song ever to appear on the Billboard country songs chart: Love Like Crazy peaked at #3 in 2010 and
charted for 56 weeks. Not all of his songs have “crazy” in the title; but from
now on, they probably all will. (Crazy
Girl’s other writer was Liz Rose, who wrote Songs About Rain for Gary Allan and who has co-written extensively
with Taylor Swift.)

4. Have Just A Few Artists Dominated The
Country Charts This Year? If you look at it one way, the answer’s got to be
“yes.” Blake Shelton’s had 3 #1 hits in 2010, and Billboard recently listed (in
their online weekly Country Update) these artists who’ve had 2 #1 hits this
year: Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, Jason Aldean, Zac Brown Band, and Chris
Young. All but Young are consensus radio superstars, and Young’s not far away
from getting there himself. (If you’re wide awake, a bonus quiz: Billboard made
a mistake; they left out another artist who has had 2 #1’s this year as well.
Who is this mystery performer, who is the only artist with a lifetime total of
exactly 13 Billboard #1 country hits?)

Considering that Aldean and Zac Brown Band might well land
their third #1’s of the year by the end of December, and that Paisley and
Chesney have rapidly-climbing songs that will run out of calendar just before
they can reach the top for the third time, the big acts are faring very well at
country radio right now.

5. Or Have Newcomers
More Than Held Their Own In 2011? This side of the argument will get some
support below, when I write about various lists of year-end #1 hits. But even
before I go there, let’s see how the newcomers have done: Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not was a #1 hit, Thompson Square’s first.
Jake Owen’s Barefoot Blue Jean Night
was one of the year’s biggest songs, and his first #1. Justin Moore had only
his second #1 this year. The Band Perry just missed their second, after topping
the chart for the first time last December. Jerrod Niemann had his second top 5
hit.

And if you look at the 11/5 chart, the most recent one, you
see Eli Young Band and Brantley Gilbert, strong candidates for first-ever #1’s,
in the top 10. And Eric Church, David Nail, and Ronnie Dunn have songs in the
top 20. OK, I can’t count Ronnie; he’s never had a solo #1 before, but I
realize that he’s not entirely a newcomer to country radio success. Still,
that’s an impressive listing of artists who are contending for their first #1
song, all on the chart at the same time.

6. After Eli Young
Band, Who Will Claim Or Fly To #1? Of course I can’t be 100%
sure EYB will get their first #1, but I’m leaning strongly in that direction.
After that the two obvious contenders are Miranda Lambert’s Baggage Claim and Taylor Swift’s Sparks Fly. Lately Swift’s songs have
made it to #1 on Mediabase while peaking at #2 or even #3 on Billboard – could
this song be different? Maybe her label wants one #1 on Billboard per album, at
a minimum. And the recent successes of Lambert, most notably when she
constructed the 4-week #1 The House That
Built Me, make it clear she must be considered a contender for #1 anytime
she releases a single.

These two songs have been passing and re-passing each other,
most recently on the 11/5 chart, which saw Lambert make a rare 5-position jump
within the top 10 as she passed Swift with a 9-4 burst. On the other hand Swift
has gained a lot of audience this week and could well forge back in front. Both
songs are well placed to inherit #1 from Crazy
Girl, but who will get there first? And will the other sustain its airplay
long enough to reach #1 as well? I do think Swift will pass Lambert on the
11/12 chart; that’s as far ahead as my crystal ball will go.

[Items 7 through 10 have to do with year-end country hit
lists, and will be published here during the week of 10/31. Those comments will
be at least as frightening as anything else you encounter this Hallowe’en, so
come back soon.]

]]> http://countrycharttalk.com/jns-top-10-are-you-going-1-or-not-edition/feed/ 1 http://countrycharttalk.com/taylor-swift-sparks-fly/ http://countrycharttalk.com/taylor-swift-sparks-fly/#comments Mon, 11 Jul 2011 20:57:53 +0000 Ben Foster http://countrycharttalk.com/?p=2340 Read More]]> Truth be told, I would probably like “Sparks Fly” even better had its single release not come after I had been jamming to “Mean” for months prior. It was a pleasant surprise to hear such a fun hoedown of a song so effortlessly country from an artist who typically favors polished pop-country sounds, but the overtly personal nature of the lyrics, combined with the tell-it-like-it-is attitude, were both classic Swift.

“Sparks Fly” could be considered a return to form for the pop-country superstar. It’s more of the kind of material we come to expect from her – a ode to youthful infatuation, polished with the most charming and catchy pop hooks. In this instance, Taylor is falling for a handsome young man whom she known is “a bad idea,” yet she ‘sees sparks fly whenever he smiles.’

Songs of this nature often succumb to dull lyrical content. In Taylor’s songwriting catalog, a “White Horse” or a “Fifteen” may occasionally be offset by a less-fortunate “Today Is a Fairytale” or “Picture to Burn.” But where she often succeeds is in supplying deeper hues of color to the scenes she portrays, as opposed to leaning on shallow cliche phrasing. “Sparks Fly” utilizes some interesting imagery in telling its story, including engaging lines such as “The way you move is like a full-on rainstorm/ And I’m a house of cards.” That’s fairly deep for a song whose foremost ambition is putting the listener in a good mood. A nuanced and expressive lead vocal on Taylor’s part finishes things off nicely.

Ultimately, “Sparks Fly” succeeds by staying true to what it is – a pleasant slice of pop-country in a similar vein to her 2010 hit “Fearless.” While “Sparks Fly” might not leave as deep a mark on one’s memory as “Mean” before it, it achieves what it sets out to do. Indeed, Swift has wholly succeeded in crafting a simple feel-good pop-country love song that’s every bit as pleasant and infectious as it intends to be.

Ben Foster is a freelance country music journalist and editor of The 1-to-10 Country Music Review.  His work can also be found on Roughstock and Dixie Streams.

Finally A Song Can Bee At #1 For A Month. We haven’t seen this since the Billboard chart dated July 3, 2010 when Miranda Lambert finished her 4-week run with The Hive That Built Me. No, sorry, that should read “house.” In any event, Blake Shelton does it, or will do it as soon as the 7/16 chart is released (which won’t happen until tomorrow, but this is not an industry secret). Honey Bee is the first 4-week #1 since House completed its 4-week residency.

We have had plenty of 4-week #1 songs in the recent past. We’ve had 5 and 6-weekers and even a few that lasted longer. In case you came of age during the era of Somebody Like You and It’s 5:00 Somewhere, I’ll take you back to when 4-weekers were rare or non-existent. For example, in the entire decade of the 1980’s there were no 4-week #1 songs at all, and only a handful of 3-weekers. Only Randy Travis’ Forever And Ever, Amen lasted even 3 weeks at the top in the 9-year period 1981-1989.

Thanks, Blake, for making sure we’re not going to spend 9 years without a 4-week #1 hit.

2. Many A Tier Must Fall. Or, in this case, must rise – we have a group of 4 songs battling to succeed Shelton at #1 now that Taylor Swift’s 3-week #2 hit Mean has fallen out of contention. There were 6 songs on last week’s chart that managed to accumulate 34 million audience impressions – that’s very unusual. And it’s not clear which of these songs is going to reach the top, let alone what order they’ll get there in. Let’s look at the #3 through 6 songs, which are so close to each other that they constitute their own “tier” on the Billboard chart.

3. You Lie Lies In Wait. This Band Perry song has taken the slow route. Look at this chart run, going back to the April 23 chart, when You Lie hit #12. After that, the song has had these chart positions: 11, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 3. It probably will reach #2 on the new chart we expect to see tomorrow. This is an unusual way to reach #1, because this song is now 30 weeks old and it’s hard to keep the string of 30 million impression weeks going. But it could last another week – it should be at #2 with more than a half million lead on the rest.

4. Tomorrow Competes With Heaven. Justin Moore’s song If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away has climbed like a future #1. Tomorrow by Chris Young has done the same. And the two have been passing, re-passing, and re-re-passing each other along the way. It’s hard to see which is the favorite to reach #1, or which will get there first if they both make it. And the pressure applied by fast-moving Jason Aldean makes it decreasingly likely that they can both make it. I believe Jonsolo, a writer who pays more attention to the Billboard country chart than anybody else, said they’ve played leapfrog 8 times already. And they may not be done yet. The 9^th time one jumps past the other could happen as soon as the 7/16 chart.

5. Aldean Could Pass Them All. First of all, it’s hard to see how anybody could be burning up country radio any more powerfully than Jason Aldean. Just this year he’s had the big lead single My Kinda Party, the huge duet with Kelly Clarkson Don’t You Wanna Stay, and now the… I guess it’s safe to call it “anthemic” Dirt Road Anthem. He’s been flying up and he has finally forced his way into this tier along with the songs mentioned above. So it wouldn’t be surprising if his song takes over and denies the others a shot at #1. But it also wouldn’t be surprised if 2, or 3, or all 4 of them get there.

That’s the first tier I wanted to bring up; but it’s not the last.

6. Lady A Competes With Mr Z. I would have expected more buzz and faster gains for a new Lady Antebellum single, but Just A Kiss hasn’t quite performed up to expectation. On the other hand, even a weak Lady A lead single is still a Lady A lead single, and few other songs could climb up the chart side-by-side with Just A Kiss. However, Knee Deep, a collaboration between Zac Brown Band and Jimmy Buffett, is just such a song – and the lead Lady A has enjoyed is now narrowing. On the 7/9 chart, the Lady A lead has shrunk to about 100k. These two songs are a two-song tier, climbing side by side and trying to reach #1. They’ll have to wait for the tier above them to have a run at the top; then, we will find out if Lady A can summon the drive to go all the way and if ZBB can post their 7^th #1 song in their 8 country radio singles. (In this case, I think they can and will both get to the top. Tiers with only two songs often allow both members to reach the top. I have had a feeling for awhile that ZBB would go up first, but now I’m wondering if we won’t see a bit of leap-frogging here.)

7. The Final Tier To Feast Your Eyes On. Here’s one that’s hard to forecast, but easy to enjoy. Last week’s Billboard chart had 4 songs, ranked from #16 on down to 19, within 400k impressions of one another. That’s unusual. It resulted in a somewhat misleading 4-notch jump for Eli Young Band’s Crazy Girl, a song I’ve thought for a while would be their first top 10, but which is about to drop down a bit before re-asserting itself. Close behind #16 EYB is the American Idol winner, Scotty McCreery, with I Love You This Big; right behind him is Josh Turner’s long-lasting cover song I Wouldn’t Be A Man; and right behind him is Billy Currington’s future #1 (according to me) Love Done Gone.

Josh Turner may not belong in this tier – his song’s moved so slowly that the others have caught up to it but will shortly pass it. On the other hand, about 700k behind the tier we have fast-moving George Strait (his 45^th #1 hit?) and reasonably strong mover Rodney Atkins. So the tier might re-form with 5 or 6 songs in it. I’d keep my eye on this group if I were you.

8. Strait And Urban Require Analysis. I’m not saying they need to sign up for the services of a shrink. In fact, they both seem very balanced to me; emotionally strong, in my view. (I’m sure they’d be thrilled to hear that opinion.) But in order to follow the chart moves of two big hits like these, some chart analysis is essential. On the CCT website, we’ve got two threads that I think you’ll enjoy following. One, on the chart moves of last week’s Hotshot Debut and this week’s Greatest Gainer Long Hot Summer, can be found here. And another, on Strait’s fast-moving hit Here For A Good Time, a rare top-20-in-only-three-weeks song, can be found here. Read the chart analysis, offer up your own comment, and enjoy the community that participates in these events. Jonsolo, mentioned above, is a clear thinker who will always provide reasons for his chart projections. He’s not just a wishful thinker.

9. Keep Track Of How Toby’s Song Does. I have great respect and admiration for Toby Keith’s talent but I don’t agree with his decisions to pull singles that still have plenty of growth in them. It could be he sees something I don’t see – in fact, that’s almost certainly the answer. But more than once he has stopped supporting a song that I enjoyed – this time the excellent Somewhere Else – instead preferring a new release. This time, he released a song called American Made that covers old territory and doesn’t seem to offer all that much that is original. The new song is climbing rapidly and might do especially well in the run-up to July 4^th, but I wonder whether this one is going to get him back to the top of the charts – or just flounder around so that he can pull it early and release yet another new song. Let’s wait and see.

10. This Year’s Top 10 Songs (So Far). I create a year-end top 50 list in which I try to find the songs that are likely to wind up as the biggest hits of the year. My methods involve the awarding of points and the assignment of those points to one year in the event that the song straddles two years in its chart run (as is so often the case). I will have a longer post on this topic later, but for the moment I’ll list the 10 biggest songs of 2011, not all of which I expected to rank where they did:

Why Wait, Rascal Flatts – hard to believe this is the biggest song of the year

Let Me Down Easy, Billy Currington

A Little Bit Stronger, Sara Evans

Felt Good On My Lips, Tim McGraw

Don’t You Wanna Stay, Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson – I thought this would be on top at this point, but it just didn’t stay on the chart long enough

Voices, Chris Young

Someone Else Calling You Baby, Luke Bryan

Somewhere With You, Kenny Chesney

Turn On The Radio, Reba

What Do You Want, Jerrod Niemann — pretty nice for a song that peaked at #4; the others were all #1 hits

I might change my formula a bit to account for the presence this year of so many songs that went up fast and then dropped fast. Brad Paisley’s song with Alabama; Honey Bee; maybe Brad’s new duet with Carrie Underwood. We’ll have to see.

1. What’s So Special About Honey Bee? It’s light, it’s catchy, it’s summery, and it flew to the top of the chart. (That must have stung the slower-climbing artists. Taylor Swift is usually swift on the charts, and her song has completed 15 weeks on the chart; ordinarily this would be her week to celebrate a #1 song, but Blake buzzed right past. Here’s my question: why is this song such a favorite among women? Most of the lyrics are innocent enough, but he wants her to be his honeysuckle – she’s a plant, she doesn’t move, she waits for him. But he gets to be her honeybee, and cross-pollinate with a lot of other plants, not just her. He travels, he enjoys his freedom, and she is… a plant. Nice deal for him to get the woman in the song to buy into this, but why are so many female listeners enchanted with this one-sided romance? Feel free to explain what I am missing here. I don’t begrudge the song’s status as a hit – I’m just puzzled that it’s so big.

2. Two More Big Hits Enter The Top 10. This week is notable for the top 10 entries of Lady Antebellum’s new single Just A Kiss and Zac Brown Band’s Knee Deep (featuring Jimmy Buffett). These two recent releases have been passing otherwise strong songs such as Dierks Bentley’s Am I The Only One and Luke Bryan’s Country Girl (Shake It For Me) quite easily on their way to top 10 status. Can there be any doubt that both of these songs will reach #1 after Honey Bee loses its sting? Lady A’s last lead single, Need You Now, spent 5 weeks at the top – this one isn’t going to do that, but nobody else has managed a 5-week #1 song since NYN. And keep in mind that all but one of ZBB’s singles have reached #1 – and the one that missed, Whatever It Is, peaked at #2 and lost out on the top spot by a tiny margin. I don’t think either act will fall short this time.

3. Jerrod Niemann Crashes Into The Top 40. One More Drinking Song is the name of Niemann’s third single from his successful album Judge Jerrod And The Hung Jury. He reached #1 with the surprising Lover, Lover; he got as high as #4 with the different-sounding What Do You Want. This time he fools us by releasing something more predictable in the way of a toast to the summertime. But if you’re familiar with the introduction to One More Drinking Song on the album, you know that Jerrod never strays too far from expressing his sense of humor. This isn’t quite your typical drinking song no matter how much it resembles one. This song moves up 14 positions on the 6/25 Billboard chart and reaches #34. Looks like a future top 10 to me, with an outside shot at going to #1. If you haven’t heard the album, with its tongue-in-cheek segues from one song to the next, this might be a good time to give it a listen.

4. Alan Jackson Has A Drinking Song Too. Not that he’s a stranger to the topic: It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere was Jackson’s longest-running #1 song ever, at 8 weeks. But this new one about a bug in the margarita glass is funny and downright irresistible. It’s called Long Way To Go, and it hasn’t charted yet but it will debut next week. With Alabama making a comeback, AJ couldn’t stay away for long – everybody who can chart a song is going to do it this summer.

5. Kenny Chesney’s Progressing Toward A Major Chart Distinction. Nobody’s ever had more than 5 #1 country singles on a single album – and no, I’m not counting Greatest Hits collections or live performances, I’m looking at studio albums. If you’re strict, like I am, you say it’s only been done once – by Rodney Crowell in 1988-89. Brad Paisley almost did it – but his original album 5^th Gear only had 4 #1’s. (Sorry, a re-release doesn’t count, even if Waitin’ On A Woman was added.)

But right now we’re watching Chesney’s chart runs carefully. His current album Hemingway’s Whiskey has already produced 3 #1 hits – The Boys Of Fall, Somewhere With You, and Live A Little. Now his duet with Grace Potter, You And Tequila, has reached the top 15 and it’s gaining strongly. There are quite a few strong candidates for #1 singles remaining on the album, so if the current song gets to #1, Kenny will have the chance to tie, and possibly to break, the longstanding Crowell record. You can’t say you weren’t warned.

6. American Idol 2, Paying Your Dues 0. I guess it’s just got to be this way – the reality of reality shows is not to be denied. And I don’t wish bad fortune to the winner and runner-up on AI, who take their music very seriously and want to make country music. But I just can’t help thinking of all the singers and songwriters who perform in clubs around the country, waiting for a break for a decade or more.

Congrats to Scotty McCreery for debuting a couple of weeks ago at #32 with I Love You This Big, and moving up now to #25. Congrats as well to Lauren Alaina, who has also charted for 3 weeks and is now at #45 with Like My Mother Does. I admit it, I want to see Sunny Sweeney climb the chart a lot faster than she’s moving – I like the lessons she has learned; I can hear them in her voice. But I have to recognize the achievements of the American Idols; we live in their world.

7. Why Can’t Reba’s Song Go Places? Reba’s current single When Love Gets A Hold Of You is a pretty good song. And Reba’s fairly well known at this point – I would have to say that she has earned her one-name superstar status as much as anybody ever has in any genre; right, Bono? Yet it took this song 8 weeks to reach #40, and now on the new chart the song has slipped back to #42 in week 9. I don’t get it. Should be top 20 by now. I understand it takes relative unknowns 25 weeks to go places that big stars go in 8 weeks – that’s how radio works. But why can’t Reba’s song get going? Will it flop? Tell me below what you think its peak position will eventually be (or has it already gotten there).

8. I Can’t Tell You No, And Neither Can Sara. That is to say: I can’t tell you Sara Evans’ comeback is going to stall. Because I don’t think it will: she had one big #1 song, and now she’s at the crossroads. She was down pretty far and the success of A Little Bit Stronger, a 2-week #1, brought her back a long way. To go the rest of the way, she needs a second top 10.

Up to #49 in chart week 2 is Sara’s new release, My Heart Can’t Tell You No. And I think she can ride this one to the top 10, and feel a sense of relief that she’s back on top of the country world. As of this week, she’s now ranked #150 all-time among country radio artists – that’s a nice feather for the Evans cap – and she’s setting sail for the top 100. Couldn’t happen to a better singer.

9. Fishing Is One Source Of Pre-Marital Pleasure. Craig Campbell’s debut single Family Man was modest and earnest. It charted for a very long time, 40 weeks – peaking at #14: an earnest and modest chart run. Now he deserves a mention for reversing himself with a playful song (called Fish) about a girlfriend who’s obsessed with f***ing, and yes, I do mean fishing. The song’s got the right tone, and it isn’t going wink-wink all the time and pretending to be dirty. It’s got excellent fiddle, strong vocals, and everything it needs to be a surprise hit. It’s up to #46 in just two weeks, and you should cast a line and see if Fish hooks you.

10. George Strait Posts His Second-Highest Debut Ever. I was trying to build up to this, not upstage it with a fish story: George set his personal best for debuts a few years ago with I Saw God Today, which spent its first week at the lofty position of #19. George isn’t usually given to the spectacular; he’s modest and would never do what Garth did in pushing for a #1 debut.

Still, it’s a good sign for veteran George-watchers to see Here For A Good Time enter the chart at #29. He’s been off the chart for about 20 weeks; he’s aging well but obviously not capable of getting younger. His fans sometimes worry. But he’s got a dynamite song here, and his performance is very strong and comes across very well on the radio. I think it will be his 45^th #1 song, and I can’t wait for that to happen (but I will have to, for 4 months or so).

It could use a stronger title hook, but the verses are an overall solid narrative of the dissolution of a relationship, focusing on the desperation of the left-behind partner as he gropes for the right words to keep his woman from leaving him. The track is backed by a standard contemporary country arrangement with trills of steel guitar. For the most part, the production stays out of the way, allowing the lyrics and performance to stand front and center.

And yet, for some reason, I’m not feeling it. Why am I not feeling it? “I Got Nothin’” seems to have the makings of a strong single, but there’s something missing, and that’s emotional resonance. Darius has a great voice, and from a technical perspective, his vocals seem to get the job done. His vocal delivery is neither weak, nor off-key, but it fails to channel the tortured emotions in the song’s lyric. He sings the words, hits the notes, and calls it a day. Without that much-needed emotional connection, we are left with what feels like a bland, warmed-over product that leaves little of an impression after its three-and-a-half minutes have expired.

A good song is a good song, but when put on record, the lead vocal is what ultimately binds the whole package together. Even a great song can fall flat if the vocal doesn’t do the job right. “I Got Nothin’” is a solid composition, but with Darius’ disconnected delivery, the overall package misses the mark.

Ben Foster is a Country Chart Talk staff writer, a Roughstock contributing writer, and the editor of The 1-to-10 Country Music Review.

1. Urban No Longer Settles For Second Place. Anytime a big star is denied #1 hits more than once, I can’t help wondering whether he can make it back to the top at all. Plus I find it surprising that his lighter fare (Put You In A Song, for instance) fell short while this more serious, self-reflective song powered its way to #1. But on the Billboard chart dated 6/18, you’ll see Without You firmly in charge, probably by a margin of 1.5 million impressions. And his next single, as long as he releases Long Hot Summer, is almost a guaranteed chart-topper. Two in a row?

2. Ronnie Dunn Finds His Second Wind. Bleed Red, Ronnie’s first solo single since splitting up with Kix Brooks – the beginning of his second career —  started out with a rapid climb. In its 7^th chart week, Bleed Red had almost reached 17 million in Billboard audience, and it looked like a big hit. But then the song slowed down and began to look like it might miss the top 10 entirely. The song crept into the #10 position on the 5/28 Billboard, using a small gain effectively but looking washed up after only 14 weeks, and then it dropped to #12 in week 15. Then came the second wind. Up two million in week 16, and back into the top 10. Still holding down a top 10 position the next week. And on the new chart, he might get to #9 and still manage an audience gain. Whether he does or not, the return to the top 10 was great – and soon we’ll be expecting great things from Ronnie’s second single of his second career.

3. Reba Drops Dolly Into Second. If you’ve read my top 10’s before, then you know that I’m a fan of Joel Whitburn’s points-based method of ranking country music artists’ achievements at radio. For many years, there was only 1 woman in the all-time country radio top 10, and that was the incomparable Dolly Parton. But the equally-incomparable Reba finally made it into the top 10 when her single Strange charted in April, 2009. And in April 2011, when her current single When Love Gets A Hold Of You debuted, Reba moved past Dolly up to #7 on the Whitburn list. The two have had about the same number of top 10’s and #1 hits, and they have both been icons in the country music world at the very highest level. Is Reba #1, or is Dolly? You decide, and keep in mind: Dolly’s supposed to be releasing a new song soon. I guess Dolly and Reba have been studying the Whitburn list….

4. Who’s Playing Second Fiddle For George Strait? Naturally, everybody plays second fiddle “to” the King – nobody is quite as kingly as George. But I said “for” the king. on his brand-new single, debuted on country radio today, there is so much lively, enjoyable fiddle-playing in the arrangement. Terrific new song, called Here For A Good Time. A future #1 for Strait. Great fiddle-playing probably means there’s a first fiddle, and a second fiddle — old-style twin fiddle-playing that adds a lot to this song. We haven’t heard from Strait in a while, but he’s back in a big way. Let me know what you think of the new single.

5. Song Lyrics: I Second That Emotion. I remember that line from a Smokey Robinson song played on pop radio about 1000 years ago. I thought it was smart and witty without trying too hard, and I have looked for “smart and witty” ever since. And there’s some on the chart right now. If you haven’t listened carefully to You Lie by The Band Perry, give yourself a treat and listen. “You lie like a rug”? That was an insult when I was in 6^th grade. But when TBP gets hold of it, it becomes “You lie like a priceless Persian rug on a rich man’s floor.” And they keep on going, tossing off light, smart, witty lyrics throughout, with a nice hint of female combativeness. Possibly this will be #1 after Blake Shelton’s Honey Bee, if it just holds on long enough. But it may have to settle for finishing second.

6. I’m Having Second Thoughts About Toby’s Chances. I think Toby Keith’s current single Somewhere Else is one of his best in the whole Toby-Superstar Age which covers everything since How Do You Like Me Now. He’s released some weak material and not much strong material in the last few years, with notable exceptions A Little Too Late and As Good As I Once Was. But now I’m starting to doubt Toby’s current #12 song’s chances of going top 3, let alone #1. I don’t think he can outrun newer acts like Zac Brown Band and Lady Antebellum. I don’t think he can compete with Paisley or Underwood, let alone the two of them together. I know he’s got his fingers in a lot of pies, but I’d like to see him concentrate on getting his top-notch material into the ears of his fans. If you’re going to release them, then support them. All the way.

7. Some Words Have A Second Meaning. And when I say “meaning,” I mean Mean, Taylor Swift’s current hit. I think the songwriting on this one is a lot crisper and stronger than on many of her early songs. I think the chorus is stronger than any of her other choruses since Tim McGraw’s. I think the arrangement is much more suitable to country radio. And I think her label will make a big push this week to get this song to #1. OK, I might be wrong about that last one, but I still have a sense that at some point there is going to be an album coming from Swift’s pen that really lights up the country world. And if this suggests that some of her earlier work wasn’t as good, I’ll say two things: one, I loved the “moon like a spotlight on the lake” line from the first time I heard it, and two, please don’t write a song about me and my meanness. I’m a nice guy.

8. Second-Hand Songs Don’t Usually Do Well. They’re properly called cover songs but I have my theme and I’m sticking to it. Occasionally you will find a song reaching #1 more than once – the cover version can be very popular. Don Williams had a #1 with It Must Be Love and Alan Jackson covered it with the same result. But Josh Turner’s attempt to cover a Don Williams song (I Wouldn’t Be A Man) isn’t having the same result. Even after his recent #1 hits, Josh has gotten stuck in the 20’s and even 32 chart weeks has not been enough to get him into the teens. It’s considered risky (unless you’re Alan Jackson) to release cover songs.  One of my favorites is Keith Urban’s version of Rodney Crowell’s Making Memories Of Us. Feel free to comment below on your favorite cover songs.

9. I’m Not Sure About The Second Duet. Brad Paisley’s singles from his new album This Is Country Music have included two duets. They’re about as risky as cover songs, unless you’re Brad Paisley, in which case they’re not risky at all. I thought the duet with Alabama, Old Alabama, was well-conceived, especially in the way the melody of Alabama’s Mountain Music was interwoven with the melody of the Paisley song. Very clever, and a nice piece of songwriting; “Bradabama” deserved their #1 peak and could easily have spent a month atop the Billboard chart (which hasn’t happened all year). But now we have the second duet, Brad with Carrie Underwood (I call them “Paiswood”), and I have my doubts. The song starts well, and I think it would work as a solo effort. Certainly the theme of trying to rekindle a spent passion has been a successful song topic. But the “remind me” interjections by Underwood don’t work for me – the two voices don’t blend and the appearances by Carrie sound harsh – so I think what we have is one duet too many being released. Go ahead and light me up in the comments section if you disagree.

10. It’s Second Nature For Me To Write. I’m glad to be back, and I’m planning to post once a week at least. I look forward to your comments and I’m telling you right now there will be interesting developments on CountryChartTalk this year. For starters, don’t miss out on the chart analysis threads in the forum section – there’s one with 1200 posts (!) about the chart run of Without You; there’s one already started on the new Strait single even though it has had only one day of country airplay; and there will soon be one for the new Keith Urban song once it has been released. And if you want to request a chart analysis thread for your favorite song, I’ll try to arrange for someone to write it.

Then there are those songs that are just in the middle. Not terrible, but not groundbreaking. Listenable when it comes on the radio, but not a song that you would crank out of your stereo. These songs belong to a group I’d like to call the (appropriately named) middle class. These songs are the worst to have to review. There is absolutely nothing to praise, and nothing to knock on. There are artists that continue to crank out songs in the upper class, and artists you wish would go away from the lower class. But how do you review artists that have marked their ways in all three of these classes? For instance, today’s victims: Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott, and Dave Haywood, aka Grammy award winning group Lady Antebellum. Their last CD, led by the top-selling country single of all time, has gone four times platinum and spent a score of weeks on top of Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart. How do you come off an album like this? Apparently, with “Just a Kiss.”

“Just a Kiss” is the first single off of Lady Antebellum’s yet-to-be titled third studio album. “Just a Kiss” is a song that covers the topic of not wanting to take things too far, and going only as far as, believe it or not, just a kiss. It opens with a classic Lady piano hook, which entertains until we get to hear Hillary Scott’s voice. Hillary sounds just as fantastic as ever on “Just a Kiss”, as well as Charles, who gets to shine mid-way through the first verse. Her pristine voice mixed with Charles’s slightly raspy tone creates tremendous harmonies, and ear candy that not even Willy Wonka could dream of making. Their strong vocal performance is a key feature in this track, and it makes up for the somewhat unsatisfactory lyrics.

Though I give the group a thumbs up for originality in song scheme, I can’t find a lyric that really grabs my attention. They aren’t horrible lyrics, but nothing fantastic… you could say the lyrics belong to the middle class. Most of the lyrics were far too predictable. For example, the lines: “We don’t need to rush this/Let’s just take it slow”, to me, seem generic and overused, especially the latter part. Any line like this: “I know it’s time to leave, but you’ll be in my dreams” is sweet, but is cliche’d and far too gooey/lovebird for this country kewk. That’s obviously opinionated, though. Moving on.

 Of course don’t let me forget about the production on this track. How could I? Production is a huge part of any song. It creates the feel. If you pieced a flawless vocal together with some heavy metal instrumentation, you wouldn’t get the same effect. Lady A usually knows what their doing when it comes to production. I like how this group really makes piano work in country music. Dave Haywood is very talented at this. Even though the track is led mainly by piano, you’ll hear some guitar and violin as well, all fitting together in the same harmonious way that works just like Charles and Hillary’s harmonies.

This song cannot be classified as lower class. Lady A is in the clear for now. It even surpasses middle class songs. This song was fun to review. More importantly, it makes for an enjoyable listen. “Just a Kiss” will be a big hit. For the reason that is pretty obvious, Lady Antebellum is a staple radio artist. But with that already being a given, it’s a worthy top five, upper class song, and will probably have a few weeks at the top of the charts. It has a contemporary feel to it and plenty of appeal. Keep your ears open for this one, and look for a new Lady Antebellum album this summer/fall.

One of the first things I notice about “Somewhere Else” overall is that it sounds different from most of Toby’s recent output. On “Trailerhood,” the lead single from Toby’s latest album, he went for catchy and funny but came up mostly empty. On the stronger “Bullets In The Gun,” the title track, Toby went for a more gruff sound and it worked pretty well, yet he was still unable to crack the top 10 and match the success of past hits. On “Somewhere Else”, Toby tackles the subject of lost love with ease from the very beginning.

“Walked downtown in my broke down shoes to the Side Street Pub with the bar band blues,” sings Toby in the opening line. Right away the scene is set—we’ve got a downbeat, brokenhearted guy who’s “sittin’ here wishin’ you’d walk right in.” By the chorus, it’s already pretty obvious that this guy’s woman left him, reminiscent of the theme in another Toby hit, “Big Blue Note.” “And I don’t know where you might be. Wherever it is it’ll be without me. Keep thinkin’ I’ll come home one day and find you,” sings Toby in the chorus.

“Somewhere Else” is split effectively—and conveniently—into two scenes, one in each verse. The first verse finds the guy heading to the local bar to presumably wash away his loneliness. In verse two, he’s back at home. Here we find some of the best lines in this song, as Toby sings “Cubs got beat again on Sports Center. My bedroom’s cold as my TV dinner.” It’s lines like these that really show us just how lonely this guy is.

Another great thing about “Somewhere Else” is true in most of Toby’s material—he’s got a strong and distinct voice. He sounds great here, especially leading into the chorus. But the song works really well because the verses are moody and gloomy, yet Toby takes the melody from the chorus and turns it into something that a lot of people might find themselves singing along to. In essence, we have a sad, story song that’s still quite catchy. Well done, Toby, well done.

While listening to this new single, it’s hard not to be reminded of Trace’s 2008 hit “You’re Gonna Miss This.” Like that past chart-topper, “Just Fishin’” emphasizes the fleeting nature of the special moments in life. Whereas the former utilized the common three-act story arc to make its point, “Just Fishin’” specifically focuses on parenthood, and isolates one significant moment in a father’s life – that of taking his daughter fishing.

The daughter is unaware of the special significance her father attaches to their simple outing. To her, it’s just a normal experience, during which she chats with her father about everything from ballet shoes to kittens, thinking that they’re “just fishin’.” Her father, on the other hand, savors every moment of the time spent with his daughter, wistfully aware that she will one day grow up and leave the nest. He’s fully aware that these moments won’t last forever, so he’s fully enjoying them while they’re still here.

As a major plus, “Just Fishin’” reminds us once again of what a talented singer Trace is. He has a recurring tendency to squander his million-dollar baritone on stale cheap fare, but when he gets a hold of a really good song, it’s a real treat to listen to. His delivery of “Just Fishin’” is warm, down-to-earth, and brimming with sincerity. One would expect that Trace, being a father of five daughters, would have a deep personal connection to this lyrical scenario. That connection comes through in his vocal.

Though it does bear a similarity to “You’re Gonna Miss This,” “Just Fishin’” still manages to offer a different variation on a familiar formula, and a well-executed attempt ends up a strong success. If Trace is going to make it back into the Country Top 10, “Just Fishin’” deserves to be the song that gets him there.

Ben Foster is a Country Chart Talk staff writer, a Roughstock contributing writer, and the editor of The 1-to-10 Country Music Review.

One of DiPiero’s first cuts was the Oak Ridge Boys smash “American Made.” Right out of the gate, it showed his knack for a catchy melody and a lyric that’s just a little bit different (the first verse, where they lament Nikon cameras, Sony TVs and foreign video games is particularly inspired). The fact that it allowed all four Oaks to show off their pipes in one song didn’t hurt, either. His next hit was also a rather big one: “That Rock Won’t Roll”, which took Restless Heart to the top of the charts for the first time.

Although only three more of his songs appeared on the charts between the late 1980s and 1992, they were all #1 hits as well: Reba’s “Little Rock”, Highway 101′s “(Do You Love Me) Just Say Yes” and Shenandoah’s “Church on Cumberland Road”, the latter two written in collaboration with Sherrill and Dennis Robbins. By 1988, the three formed a band called Billy Hill, with bassist Reno Kling and drummer Martin Parker; Robbins portrayed a fictional lead singer of the same name, while DiPiero and Sherrill alternated as guitarists. Their debut album for Warner/Reprise, I Am Just a Rebel, got some modest success with “Too Much Month at the End of the Money” (later a minor hit in 2003 for Marty Stuart), but a second album never got completed. However, one of the cuts from that missing disc was the aforementioned “Cumberland Road”, which became Shenandoah’s first chart-topper when they released it in 1989. Having co-written the first two #1 hits for two different bands, he had nowhere to go but up.

And that’s exactly what he did. For the first half of the 1990s, DiPiero’s name appeared on several big hits, all quite nicely varied in sound. Sammy Kershaw got to #10 with “Anywhere but Here”, a loose honky-tonk number with an early George Jones feel. John Jarrard and Mark D. Sanders pitched in on a few DiPiero co-writes in the mid-1990s, including the #1 hits “Money in the Bank” by John Anderson, “Daddy’s Money” by Ricochet and “Blue Clear Sky” by George Strait. Neal McCoy also got two DiPiero cuts in close proximity, both light and fluffy — really, which of McCoy’s songs weren’t? — but still catchy: “They’re Playin’ Our Song” (also a Jarrard/Sanders co-write) and the chart-topper “Wink”, co-written by Tom Shapiro. The two also tried the opposite tack with Kathy Mattea’s anthemic “Walking Away a Winner”, and found equal success.

All of the aforementioned up-tempos, despite sounding like radio fodder on the surface, had interesting little touches to make them different. “Money in the Bank” name-drops Krystal, of all fast food chains, and has a clever third verse about a man who invents a money-generating machine. Speaking of money, “Daddy’s Money” has plenty of cute yet effective lines, such as “more laughs than a stack of comic books” and “she’s a good bass fisher / A dynamite kisser / Country as a turnip green.” The George Strait song gets its reversed title as a shout-out to Forrest Gump.

DiPiero also provided Pam Tillis, to whom he was married from 1991 to 1997, with several varied cuts, most notably the spunky and humorous single “Cleopatra, Queen of Denial.” 1996′s All of This Love, on the other hand, makes it patently obvious that the two were on the verge of a split: “It’s Lonely Out There” has her whispering “go on, walk away / Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” following that with “Have you forgotten how it was / Before I wrapped you in my love?” No doubt, some of these very words were going through both of their minds at the time. It may have been a little too personal of a song to do much at radio, reaching a mere #14. At the very least, it was a vast departure from Tillis’ ebullient “Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life)” only one year prior.

Perhaps that’s a good judge of DiPiero’s songwriting ability — the fact that he was able to handle ballads and uptempos in equal measure. One of his first down-tempo songs was Reba’s #2 hit from 1994, “Till You Love Me”. Here’s an emphatic country-pop ballad about a woman who just wants to fall in love. If that song wasn’t fueled by his relationship with Tillis, then take a look at some of his other ballads. Vince Gill got the beautiful “Worlds Apart” (#8 in 1997), clearly co-written by someone with a heartache: “You were my best companion / Now we lie silent in the dark / Why do you and me have to be / Worlds apart.” Slightly later on, Bryan White assisted on the bluesy top 30 hit “Bad Day to Let You Go”, whose title is self-explanatory.

DiPiero’s output began to slow after the late 1990s, with only one of his co-writes making Top 10: “There You Are” by Martina McBride, just barely, in 2001. In comparison, Joe Diffie, Mindy McCready and Billy Ray Cyrus fell just short of the 40 with the DiPiero co-writes they chose in the time span —”Poor Me”, “The Other Side of This Kiss” and “Give My Heart to You”, respectively. Jeffrey Steele also got his only top 40 hit as a singer, working with DiPiero and former NRBQ member Al Anderson on the underrated “Somethin’ in the Water”.

It wasn’t until late 2003 that his name appeared in the single digits again, specifically on George Strait’s top 10er “Cowboys Like Us” (one of DiPiero’s only misses in my book; why write a song about motorcycle riding and make it so torturously slow?) and Brooks & Dunn’s top 3 hit “You Can’t Take the Honky Tonk Out of the Girl.” Like so many of his up-tempos before it, “Honky Tonk” works because it doesn’t try too hard — sure, it rhymes “girl” and “world”, but it’s got a winning sense of playfulness towards its subject. DiPiero also got a minor hit with another “girl” song only a few months later in the equally rambunctious “The Girl’s Gone Wild”; sure, she may come home from a wild spring break with a new tattoo, but not too many would think to phrase it “sittin’ on her new tattoo”. In fact, both of these cuts aren’t too far removed from “Somethin’ in the Water” in their love for a woman who walks on the wild side.

Although DiPiero’s cuts once again became more and more spaced out come mid-decade, he continued to show proficiency regardless of tempo. Montgomery Gentry went to #1 for the first time with the macho “If You Ever Stop Loving Me” and had a big #3 with the ditty “Gone”, but also showed some sensitivity on “She Don’t Tell Me To”. Meanwhile, Keith Anderson cheekily sang about his own muscular physique in “XXL”. Radio-friendliness and catchiness are just as prominent on these songs as any other DiPiero cut — sure, “Gone” may pad itself out with “uh uh uh uh”s, but it’s driven home by an ebullient performance and plenty of Hammond organ.

On the other hand, the album cuts yield a few ballads that cut almost as deeply as “It’s Lonely Out There”. “What Happened” by Gretchen Wilson finds its narrator struck cold by an abruptly ended relationship that’s remembered through fine little details like “little shells in a jar”. Tim McGraw, meanwhile, got the superb “Kill Myself”. No, it’s not about suicide; it’s about “killing” the man he used to be to make himself better for the one he loves. And then there’s Jeff Bates’ “The Woman He Walked On”, a hardcore waltz that shows love and sympathy for an abuse victim without ramming its morality down the listener’s throat. (While it took me a few listens to wrap my head around “What Happened”‘s murky lyrics, I highly recommend it and the other two cuts. After all, stuff like this almost never gets put out as singles.)

DiPiero’s two most recent singles continue the dichotomy. Tim McGraw’s “Southern Voice”, a number one hit in January 2010, is a list song. But it’s a list song that succeeds by simplicity: instead of some Mad Libs selection of Southern imagery, it’s a reasonably well-chosen who’s who of famous Southerners who are quite unarguably representative of the South. At the other end of the year, Sunny Sweeney clawed her way into the top 40 (and eventually, the #10 position) with the wonderful “From a Table Away.” Set to a hardcore honky-tonk sound not unlike the Dixie Chicks’ more traditional fare, it convincingly breathes new life into that well-worn theme of adultery not only by assigning the narrator’s role to the “other woman”, but also by conveying sadness and disappointment instead of anger towards the lying man. Even if it takes a few months, I hope to see another DiPiero cut that’s even half as good make the top 10.

In short, DiPiero’s song writing style is not as easy to categorize as most others, but it’s his range that’s helped retain his hitmaker status for so long. Even just sticking to the singles he co-wrote, there’s a finely broad palette of styles and themes; and though it’s usually relegated to the album cuts, there are quite a few impressive ballads that show that yes, you really can have it both ways if you’re a songwriter. Some of his songs may be “World Apart” in style, but he’s kept plenty of “Money in the Bank” because of it.