Wednesday, January 24, 2024

1990 - high as that ivory tower ...

Man … this is gonna fly by, right?  23 songs when I’m used to having to cover 50 (as if anybody’s actually making me do this). It’s not like smartphones and internet haven’t depleted my attention span almost as much as everyone else’s, so this is kind of welcome to me.

Fans who were stoked about the sound that the “New Traditionalists” brought to the table might’ve wondered if they should’ve been careful what they wished for; the older artists, traditional or otherwise, were getting pretty quickly crowded off the charts. Even bands of fairly recent vintage like Highway 101 – whose “Who’s Lonely Now?” carried over from the previous December – were subject to replacement. Sure, Keith Whitley could have one more big posthumous hit with the charming shuffle of “It Ain’t Nothin’,” but we weren’t gonna mourn as long as we might’ve in the Jim Reeves days. 

There were new means of measurement getting phased in, and they liked newbies like Clint Black even more than the old means did.” "Nobody’s Home” wasn’t as grabby as his last couple of hits, but it was a slab of cleverly written stone-cold country delivered by perhaps the best new voice in the business. And now it could reign for three weeks instead of getting the ol’ turn-and-burn treatment. Yeah, Alabama only notched a week with “Southern Star” even though it was as catchy and dynamic a piece of country-rock wisdom as their last couple, but hell maybe they were happy with being one of the only ‘80s leftovers still prominently in the mix. Eddie Rabbitt had been around even longer, mostly purveying kinda-bland crossover stuff, but you could sense he was trying to meet the moment with “On Second Thought,” a spry shuffle that was more hard-country than his usual output. It’s hard to shrug and say “too little too late” for someone who’d had such a long and successful run – this was his 15th #1 – but that’s kind of how it panned out. The Oak Ridge Boys didn’t change up their approach much for “No Matter How High,” it was on par with their heartfelt best, but it was 17th and final for the Oaks. If you’re curious for denouement, Rabbitt passed away too young from cancer in 1998, whereas the Oak Ridge Boys are on their final retirement tour as of this writing. In the moment, they were casualties of what seemed like an intentional movement to scrub out the artists left over from the ‘80s and before in favor of a fresh start.

Patty Loveless, fortunately, had hit the charts just recently enough to get lumped in with the new guys. As usual, she delivered mightily, with “Chains” setting her signature Kentucky twang to a heartland-rock pulse. Randy Travis was pushing it a little, seeming easy to pigeonhole as an ‘80s guy, but he’d done a little too well for himself and the business to be swept out prematurely. “Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart” is moody, wordy, and kind of low-key but it was still good for four solid weeks at #1. That sure doesn’t sound like lost momentum (although he’d get there eventually, of course). 



Lorrie Morgan was the daughter of old-school country singer George Morgan – his heyday preceded the modern Billboard charts, but he’s in the Country Music Hall of Fame – and more relevantly the widow of the recently-passed Keith Whitley. She’d been a singer since her teens but hadn’t cracked the top ten until 1989’s “Dear Me,” which intentionally resonated with the sympathies over Whitley’s death. “Five Minutes” was just a breezy little ditty by comparison, but it was enough. The industry and the public were looking for a reason to cut her a break. Dan Seals was probably kind of hoping nobody noticed he was still having #1 hits, which sounds like a tough trick to pull off; “Love on Arrival” enjoyed a three week run and still sounds like a breath of fresh air, all jangly acoustics framing Seals’ sweet country tenor. 

Travis Tritt, meanwhile, was coming barreling out of the Georgia bar band scene with a vaguely biker-ish look and attitude and a brawny, soulful voice that didn’t wimp out even when he slowed things down. “Help Me Hold On” is probably still his best song, a vulnerable and sincere apology with a nice touch of Bob Seger-ish pulse under the balladry. Clint Black took back over with a fourth #1 from his debut album; “Walkin’ Away” is a smart, wryly sweet little waltz about trying to retain some sort of silver lining from a failed relationship. He might’ve been a better bet than, say, Rodney Crowell when it came to trying to sell records to youngsters, but he was smuggling some of the same folk-rock songwriting ambition into a hard-country aesthetic. It wouldn’t last forever without getting watered down, but for the moment this stuff ruled.

Ricky Van Shelton was still more baby than bathwater for the moment, living up to his New Traditionalist designation with the timelessly resilient country shuffle “I’ve Cried My Last Tear for You.” At one point he might’ve been signed in hopes of finding a new George Strait, but the original was farther from being done than anyone else in this entry: on paper at least, “Love Without End, Amen” was his biggest hit ever with a five-week run at #1. Was it also his best? I’d lean towards no. It’s pleasant, and Strait’s never a hard guy to hear, but if it’s not the first incidence of a trend it’s probably the most influential of what I’m going to call Wholesome Three-Act Country (WTAC). This kind of thing would soon be inescapable. Three verses, usually each representing some stage of the protagonist’s life, tied together poignantly by a chorus that takes on slightly different meanings in light of each little vignette. I don’t consider myself a hardhearted guy; quite the opposite, really. I’ve had a happy childhood, marriage, and parenthood so I don’t know why exactly I’m so suspicious of when someone tries to squeeze all of that into a country song. Maybe it’s the cloying wholesomeness. Maybe it’s the puzzle-piece aspect of the songwriting and once you’ve heard it all fit together you don’t need to hear it again. It’s just not my thing, but it’d be the whole damn genre’s thing off and on for the rest of our lives.

Next up was Garth Brooks with “The Dance,” and this was going to be the first of two 1990 watershed moments for him that you couldn’t have planned out better if you were making a fictional movie about a country singer who takes over the world. “The Dance” is the sort of vague, dreamy balladry that Brooks’ ‘70s folk-rock heroes like James Taylor made hay with back in their day. There’s an obvious metaphor to draw you in, and lots of imagery about the stars above and soon-to-fall kings that could apply to anything from your graduation to your divorce to your funeral. It is delivered so damn warmly by Brooks that he clearly means every word and then some. The video featured archive footage of John Wayne, Martin Luther King Jr., Keith Whitley and deceased rodeo rider Lane Frost, legends of different vintage bound together by the fact that sure, this song could be about all of them and you and everyone you know. Like “Hotel California” or “Riders On the Storm” or whatever, but way more wholesome and sincere, it’s not as deep as it thinks it is but it’s elevated by Brooks’ performance.

Dan Seals swung in for one last dance with a nice version of soul legend Sam Cooke’s “Good Times” and then immediately two-stepped down the charts forever. To me, he’d hit a really nice balance of that pop-rock crossover stuff and the kind of relatable storytelling knack that makes for good country music; he wasn’t the most distinctive star of his era, but he certainly brightened up his little corner of it. He got two weeks for his last hurrah. Shenandoah definitely had a middle-aged vibe about them in a business that was trending younger, but they were still strong in the mix with “Next to You, Next to Me” for three whole weeks at #1. It was cute and all, roughly of a piece with the aforementioned WTAC, meaning lots of folks liked it more than I did. Alabama was doing their best to put off obsolescence with the best cool-dad vibes they could muster. Kind of like Eddie Rabbitt earlier in the year, they seemed willing to steer more to a trad-country sound in keeping with the times; “Jukebox in My Mind” was neither a southern-rock banger or a soft-rock come-on, just a straight-up country shuffle implying that listening to oldies (like, say, early Alabama albums?) was solid heartache relief.   

That one scored four weeks at #1, and so did its successor, although to much farther-reaching impact. “Friends in Low Places” was the debut single off of Garth Brooks’ second album, a savvy bit of scheduling right on the heels of “The Dance” winning everyone over just a couple months prior. At first glance it’s just another barroom singalong, a modest shoutout to blue-collar bars and rowdy-ass friends with verses about disrupting some snobby ex-love’s black-tie soiree just to, I guess, let them know how much you don’t care what they think. On paper it’s just low-key clever. In practice, it just tore the roof off of modern country music. Every redneck – actual, wannabe, in-between – who’d ever felt shamed for liking country music better than the hipper, tonier options out there could bask in the vicarious joy of telling a bunch of rich stiffs to get bent en route to pounding beers down at the Oasis. Appropriately enough, it was written by a couple of dudes named Earl Bud Lee and Dewayne Blackwell (which of course sounds like what you’d name a couple of redneck cartoon characters) who probably weren’t trying to write an outright anthem but ended up with one anyway. Garth Brooks’ mission to take relatability larger than life had just hit its tipping point and it was about to rain money.

The rest of the year was pretty subdued, as if nothing could really grow all that tall in the looming shadow of “Friends in Low Places.” Reba McEntire – who’d weather the storm of newbies quite nicely over time – scored with another moody, emotionally rich ballad in “You Lie.” Joe Diffie, who’d been knocking around as a songwriter and demo singer since the mid-‘80s, finally got his push with the earnestly grateful “Home.” Upbeat but tender, it was a worthy foot in the door for a perpetually underrated vocalist. Holly Dunn scored her second and final #1 with “You Really Had Me Going,” a catchy little chugger that sounded a bit like an ‘80s throwback right at the time when the industry was supposed to be avoiding that kind of thing. KT Oslin was characteristically low-key, mature, and offhandedly sexy on “Come Next Monday,” the last #1 of her unconventional little run at the top. And George Strait, fittingly enough, brought the year to a close with the weary but hearty kiss-off of “I’ve Come to Expect it From You.” It was pretty low-key too, holding up better than his dad-country hit from earlier in the year, also managing to hold down the top spot for five weeks in a row. It might’ve been Garth Brooks’ year, but even he’d probably admit it was still George Strait’s country.



THE TREND?

It wasn’t quite the bloodletting that 1990 was, as far as longtime chart presences getting their final run at the top, but there was certainly a whiff of that. George Strait, Alabama, Reba McEntire, and Randy Travis fit the new model well enough for now; Eddie Rabbitt, the Oak Ridge Boys, and Dan Seals didn’t. And the changeup in chart methodology meant there was a little less #1 to go around, so perhaps the competition was more cutthroat than the usual aw-shucks country star persona would reveal. Much was made of the brewing (but not unfriendly) rivalry between Clint Black and Garth Brooks to be sort of the face of the new generation; Black had the early lead, but despite having arguable advantages in songwriting, vocal chops, conventional good looks etc. it wasn’t enough of one to overwhelm the sheer can’t-stop-me charisma and ambitions of Garth Brooks. Equal parts barroom buddy, marketing genius, and unconventional rock star, this was the year he found his stride. But to be fair, he wasn’t leaving the competition in the dust: it was more like one of those rising tides that lifts all boats. Or at least the ones that weren’t intentionally sunk just because they launched prior to 1987 or so.                  

THE RANKING

  1. Friends in Low Places – Garth Brooks
  2. Nobody’s Home – Clint Black
  3. Walkin’ Away – Clint Black
  4. Chains – Patty Loveless
  5. The Dance – Garth Brooks
  6. Home – Joe Diffie
  7. It Ain’t Nothin’ – Keith Whitley
  8. Help Me Hold On – Travis Tritt
  9. I’ve Come to Expect it From You – George Strait
  10. Southern Star – Alabama
  11. Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart – Randy Travis
  12. Love On Arrival – Dan Seals
  13. I’ve Cried My Last Tear For You – Ricky Van Shelton
  14. Love Without End, Amen – George Strait
  15. On Second Thought – Eddie Rabbitt
  16. No Matter How High – The Oak Ridge Boys
  17. Good Times – Dan Seals
  18. Come Next Monday – K.T. Oslin
  19. You Lie – Reba McEntire
  20. Next to You, Next to Me – Shenandoah
  21. Jukebox in My Mind – Alabama
  22. You Really Had Me Going – Holly Dunn
  23. Five Minutes - Lorrie Morgan

DOWN THE ROAD ...

We're past the point where most of these songs have a high-profile cover knocking around out there ... they're too recent, the artists that did them are still alive and well and out there singing them themselves. The early '90s stuff usually sounds too traditional for someone to refit for pop or some other genre, but not so hardcore traditional that roots-revivalist acts are banging them out for tiny labels yet. 

But: among his other unique career quirks, Garth Brooks has been (amicably) stern about keeping his music off of Spotify and other big streamers (he eventually did an Amazon-exclusive deal), a stand both principled and practical...they're generally a terrible deal for artists, and Brooks doesn't need to maximize his every possible revenue stream at this point in his financial life. But some artists with a little more need for attention have spotted a niche opportunity here: people are still gonna search for Garth songs, perhaps oblivious to his absence on some of the usual outlets, so why not insert yourself conveniently in their path?

Some dude named Brooks Jefferson (I wonder if that's his real name or a search maximizer?) has pretty much made a career out of this, and gets about a million streams a month on Spotify alone for his extended album of Garth covers. A couple of others have tried something similar, but Texas-based party-rock band Grady Spencer & The Work settled for a cover of "Friends in Low Places" nestled on a little EP with a few other '90s-friendly covers. They're legit enough that it's not one of their top-five most-streamed songs (at least at the moment), so check 'em out whether you're pining for a Garth cover or not.


    


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