1994 - unwritten law, protocol, says to leave the past alone ...

Personal recollection here … 1994 was the year I graduated from high school. CDs were a thing but I hadn’t switched over yet, my ’81 Ford Ranger had a tape deck so cassettes were good enough. I had most of the Class of ’89 guys’ work, and a good chunk of the guys that followed in their wake, but I also remember branching out of my new-country bubble more than I had in a few years. Leaning harder on new offerings from older faves like Willie Nelson and Hank Jr. Immersing in big rock bands like the Black Crowes and Aerosmith, dabbling in hip-hop and grunge and metal, listening heavily to Steve Earle and Jimmy Buffett because I was getting deeper into songwriting. I guess part of that’s having slightly more money and freedom to pursue music, plus a friend group with diverse interests that could lead you several directions. And now that I’m sitting here looking at the list of #1s from 1994, I guess partly because mainstream country was already starting to lean kind of lame. Or at least lean in a different direction than my tastes were expanding.  

Faith Hill barreling out of the gate with her first #1, “Wild One,” and hanging in there for four straight weeks was a mixed blessing. She was certainly welcome on any man’s TV, and it was nice to see a female artist break through. But it was a middling tune, blandly written and not all that catchy, with only Hill’s charisma to buoy it. Similarly, Clay Walker’s “Live Until I Die” had a nice small-town vibe and Walker’s folksy delivery on its side, but it sounds like a first draft of something that could’ve been better or at least more personal. Then the next month-long reign is John Michael Montgomery with the florid ballad “I Swear,” which ended up being a crossover hit for the generic R&B-pop also-rans All-4-One. Folks were eating this stuff up, so you just knew you were gonna get more of it, but the spark of those initial hits from Garth, Clint, etc. already seemed pretty dimmed.

Then again, you could still get something like Mark Chesnutt’s winsome, heartfelt “I Just Wanted You to Know,” written by the underrated Tim Mensy, that would renew your faith that modern country music was still at least as country as it was modern. Vince Gill could go even sadder on “Tryin’ to Get Over You” and despite his cross-genre tenor leave you with no doubt that you were on the country station. I don’t know exactly how to elucidate the gulf between those songs and the following two #1 debuts, Neal McCoy’s “No Doubt About It” and Little Texas with “My Love.” But it seems palpable to me, a fluff quotient that’s getting gradually cranked up until it becomes the new norm. McCoy is still widely admired as a dynamic stage presence, and Little Texas could nail a country lament when they wanted to (their first single, “First Time For Everything,” is infinitely better), but their first trips to the top sure weren’t encouraging for a lot of us.

Tracy Lawrence was still unmistakably a country singer, distinct nasal twang and all; “If the Good Die Young” wasn’t among his most resonant works, but it kicked up enough dust to not wear out its welcome. Faith Hill was already back, this time with a cover of the Janis Joplin classic “Piece of My Heart” that took out all the bluesy pleading and replaced it with a smooth, self-assured sort-of-country groove. Nothing too exciting, but it did reveal that there were some good songwriting bones under the fevered emoting folks had come to love (check out the R&B original by Erma Franklin sometime, I just recently learned it exists but it absolutely smokes). Clint Black seemed to be losing the thread a bit sooner than his Class of ’89 fellows, in more danger of getting crowded out by the dudes popping up in their wake; “Good Run of Bad Luck” is pretty damn solid, a gambling metaphor underpinned by a Waylon-esque rumble and some spiky picking, but Black’s ambitious wordplay was getting a little ahead of what mainstream country listeners were into. I always respected the ambition but aspiring songwriters don’t make up most of the audience.

Hate to say it, but things were drifting more towards dreck like Shenandoah (who were capable of much better of course) with “If Bubba Can Dance.” A lame shout-out to the whole country-dance craze – line dancing included – it mostly just served as an excuse to make a music video with some burly dude in overalls busting a move. John Berry snuck in for his sole #1 with “Your Love Amazes Me,” seemingly trying to cut the scruffy charm of Travis Tritt with the schmaltz of a Collin Raye; he hung around the top ten for a year or so, sometimes with better songs than this one, a talented but kind-of-indistinct performer.

And then you get “Don’t Take the Girl,” a smash hit combo of a performer and format that would factor in heavily for a lifetime by pop-culture standards. Tim McGraw was a nice kid from Louisiana, the love child of a big-league baseball pitcher. He’d had a bit of a false start with solid but unsuccessful singles since late 1991, but his second album yielded the top ten novelty hit “Indian Outlaw” (that would emphatically not fly nowadays) and set him up to knock one out of the park with “Don’t Take the Girl.” A precision-tooled piece of WTAC (Wholesome Three Act Country) delivered in the young McGraw’s earnest tenor warble, it moistened the eyes of good-natured country gals of all ages across the nation and set in motion one of the genre-defining careers of the next mini-era. When he and fellow ’94 breakthrough Faith Hill hooked up, procreated, married etc. the down-home glamor was almost more than fans could even handle: country music had a new royal family, y’all. The two are currently starring in a Yellowstone prequel about distractingly-recognizable good-looking middle-aged people surviving on the harsh frontier (I haven’t seen it, I’m making some assumptions here).

Brooks & Dunn continued to be leading lights, and “Ain’t No Way to Go” is a nicely urgent bit of heartland-rock-infused mainstream country. The influence of mainstream adult-friendly rockers like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, Tom Petty etc. was definitely seeping into country music, a welcome counterpoint to the easy-listening stuff. Maybe there’s a whiff of that in Neal McCoy’s too-cute-for-me “Wink.” It’s offset by some cornball lyrics and McCoy’s grit-adverse delivery, but audiences didn’t seem to mind: with a four-week run at #1, it was as big a hit as any in 1994. Travis Tritt’s relatively profound “Foolish Pride” continued his trend of scoring big enough with stormy ballads that he could indulge his onstage motorcycle-rocker tendencies well into the present day. It was from the same album as “Outlaws Like Us” – never released as a single, but it did get some radio play – where he was joined by Waylon Jennings and Hank Williams Jr. in a pass-the-torch moment a lot of artists would kill for. Despite the votes of confidence, this would be his last #1 for the decade; he didn’t go away, or even fade all that much, it just speaks to how crowded the field was getting at the top.

Alan Jackson remained on a less-interrupted roll. A cover of the Eddie Cochran oldie “Summertime Blues” was good enough for a three-week run at the top, a reminder of the innocent side of early rock & roll that a lot of boomers probably disproportionately preferred to remember. John Michael Montgomery was fairly well-established at this point, and the sugar-rush hoedown of “Be My Baby Tonight” was just the right kind of lightweight catchy for a summer hit. Clay Walker’s “Dreaming With My Eyes Open,” penned by Tony Arata (best-known for Garth’s “The Dance”), was more thoughtful but kept the sunny uptempo vibe going as summer drifted into autumn.       

And Randy Travis, bless him, was kind of in the autumn of his career … only in his mid-30s, a year younger than Alan Jackson or Neal McCoy but with the surprising disadvantage of seeming like he’d been around forever by ’94. Plus he was getting dogged by rumors about his private life, to the point where he was compelled to make some public denials; time would make it clear that his background and personal life was much messier than his wholesome public image suggested, although nothing ever confirmed those sorts of rumors specifically. I’m sure they still didn’t help, given the era and genre. Anyway, “Whisper Your Name” is a beautiful tune, hearty and poetic and a great fit for Travis’ sonorous voice; it’s cool that it caught on in a year when things seemed to be dumbing down a bit. But zigging while the rest zag is always a gamble, and putting out meditative numbers like this might’ve reinforced the younger audience’s sentiment that Randy Travis was someone their parents listened to, who looked and sounded older than the competition and was getting harder to two-step to. This wasn’t his last #1, but it’d be the last for quite some time. All that being said, Trisha Yearwood could speak to an older crowd raised on Aretha Franklin and Patsy Cline on an upbeat, vaguely statement-y song like “XXX’s and OOO’s (An American Girl)” and still sound fresh enough. Trends aren’t absolutes, of course.

Redneck humor had kind of piggybacked on the country music explosion; Jeff Foxworthy was probably America’s biggest comedian for a few years there, and though country songs were incorporating folksy humor well before even Hee Haw you could sort of see the influence of Foxworthy and the like seeping into some of the contemporary songwriting. Joe Diffie had a beautiful tenor twang that could elevate a heartfelt ballad without overdoing it, but he needed upbeat lightweight stuff too I guess. Hence the clunky likes of “Third Rock From the Sun,” a twisty small-town slice-of-life narrative that’s sort of humorous, I guess, if not exactly laugh-out-loud funny. Toby Keith played it straight on “Who’s That Man,” a nicely detailed divorced-dad anthem that I’m sure struck a chord with every well-meaning dude out there whose marriage just didn’t work out. Brooks & Dunn hit that hard-country/heartland rock balance again with “She’s Not the Cheatin’ Kind,” a worthy entry in a long line of country songs that acknowledge the age-old truth that hurt people hurt people.

Alan Jackson continued to be a force for good in the world with “Livin’ On Love,” a sweet-but-not-saccharine country lope about a couple of wholesome young lovers who made it to their golden years without the cheatin’ or divorcin’ or other bummers that preceded it on the charts. As with most of his self-penned tunes, there’s some nice lyrical detail and quirky rhymes in there (“it takes more than marble and tile …”) to give it a personal touch beyond filler. And then we got the first and only #1 from Mary Chapin Carpenter, which is a little surprising because she was an unconventionally big deal in the era … 1992’s “I Feel Lucky,” in particular, seemed like one of the bigger hits of the day but it peaked at #4. “Shut Up and Kiss Me” got her all the way, though … it was similarly cheeky, with enough attitude to give it spark but nothing off-putting. MCC wasn’t glamorous and didn’t try to be; she was born in Jersey, got a degree at Brown University and came up playing folk clubs in Washington DC. Her ending up in the country genre at all, much less being a fixture in the top ten for a few years, seems almost like it happened by mistake. She dressed and looked like a vaguely hip kindergarten teacher but she was a gifted vocalist and a smart songwriter on par with Rosanne Cash. “Shut Up and Kiss Me” takes a big bite of Warren Zevon’s quirky classic rocker “Werewolves of London” but it’s fun on its own merits, a down-to-earth gal flaunting some assertive sex appeal.

Clay Walker swung in for another hit with “If I Could Make a Living,” about as generic an upbeat traditional-country tune as anyone ever recorded; Alan Jackson co-wrote it but tellingly didn’t bother recording it himself. George Strait classed up the joint considerably with the shuffling charm of “The Big One,” which is kind of generic too I suppose but had a way better hook and, of course, a more seasoned vocalist. Generic was working: John Michael Montgomery’s “If You’ve Got Love” was blander than a Big Mac but it punched in at #1 for a week as well. The year closed out with reliable ol’ Joe Diffie, cornballin’ it up with the relentless truck punnery of “Pickup Man.” Stacked up against stuff like “Is it Cold in Here,” “Ships That Don’t Come In,” and “John Deere Green,” it certainly wasn’t his best hit. But it was his biggest, and that kind of told on where things were going with the genre: the broader your approach, be it comedy or sentimentality, the better your chances.       

THE TREND?

The promise of the decade’s turn hadn’t soured commercially, but artistically … look, different strokes for different folks, but this looks even more discouraging in hindsight than it did in the moment. Check out the top five or ten in the rankings down there … if more than a couple of them seem more “great!” than “good enough” to you then your glass is even more half-full than mine. Garth Brooks more or less sat out ’94, at least release-wise, and even though he was probably bigger than the chart at this point you can kind of see the business scrambling to fill the gap: lots of dudes with cowboy hats taking their best shot at something between folksy charm and larger-than-life emotion. These are fine things for music to aspire to, but it takes a certain talent and charisma to do them in a way that holds up past the country-chart shelf life. There was sure as hell money to be made in Nashville, but there was also momentum to be maintained; nobody should’ve been coming off desperate already at this point, but if you look close you can see some of the compromises desperation can beget. 

THE RANKING 

1. I Just Wanted You to Know – Mark Chesnutt
2. The Big One – George Strait
3. Whisper My Name – Randy Travis
4. Livin’ On Love – Alan Jackson
5. Tryin’ to Get Over You – Vince Gill
6. Piece of My Heart – Faith Hill
7. She’s Not the Cheatin’ Kind – Brooks & Dunn
8. A Good Run of Bad Luck – Clint Black
9. Shut Up and Kiss Me – Mary Chapin Carpenter
10. Foolish Pride – Travis Tritt
11. Dreaming With My Eyes Open – Clay Walker
12. XXXs and OOO’s (An American Girl) – Trisha Yearwood
13. That Ain’t No Way to Go – Brooks & Dunn
14. Who’s That Man – Toby Keith
15. Don’t Take the Girl – Tim McGraw
16. Pickup Man – Joe Diffie
17. Third Rock From the Sun – Joe Diffie
18. Summertime Blues – Alan Jackson
19. Be My Baby Tonight – John Michael Montgomery
20. Live Until I Die – Clay Walker
21. If You’ve Got Love – John Michael Montgomery
22. Wild One – Faith Hill
23. Wink – Neal McCoy
24. Your Love Amazes Me – John Berry
25. I Swear – John Michael Montgomery
26. If the Good Die Young – Tracy Lawrence
27. If I Could Make a Living – Clay Walker
28. No Doubt About It – Neal McCoy
29. If Bubba Can Dance (I Can Too) - Shenandoah
30. My Love – Little Texas

DOWN THE ROAD ...

Hey, wanna feel old? Of course you do! 

It's not all that often a major pop or rock star announces they want to delve into their classic-country roots, at least not anymore (we're a long way from the Byrds, Ray Charles, The Band etc.). So when they do it's kind of a big deal, especially considering how far the sound of most big-time pop and rock has diverged from anything resembling old-school country.

But keep in mind that one person's teenage memory is another person's deep dive into a distant past. In this case that first person is me and that second person is likably offbeat pop-rock sensation Post Malone. Sure, he's from Texas, and occasionally rocks a cowboy hat to give those face tattoos a little shade, but when it came to light that he was up for dabbling in country music some skepticism was in order from fans of both a) classic country music and b) Post Malone. 

It never occurred to me to think that a guy almost 20 years younger than me might have a different idea of what classic country is than I would, but Joe Diffie's "Pickup Man" came out the year before "Posty" was born. The year before I was born, Willie & Waylon's "outlaw" movement caught fire and folks like Freddy Fender and Charley Pride were burning up the charts. So hey, fair enough, plus Diffie's untimely passing a few years back might spur a little premature nostalgia for his catalog (for the record, I don't think "Pickup Man" is a great song, but some of his others certainly were). The HIXTAPE projects aren't just a Post Malone thing - other contemporary artists like HARDY and Morgan Wallen are in the hixmix too - but his participation was probably the most newsworthy.