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