2004 - and life was changed, disassembled, rearranged ...

So though I’m not crazy about the trends going around as we ease into the mid aughts, I’d still call it a mixed bag. If I had a mix CD with the first nine songs in the ranking for 2004 I’d probably give it a nostalgia listen now and then, if I could find a CD player nowadays. If I had a mix CD with the last nine songs I’d probably intentionally break any existing CD players I had.

And now we’re at the point that with every passing year the percentage of songs I don’t remember is roughly matching the number of songs I actually like. “Have you forgotten,” Darryl Worley might ask, and I’d say yes but with good reason. Kenny Chesney and “There Goes My Life” held over from 2003 for the whole month of January, bland and wispy as ever, perhaps inspiring a New Year’s resolution to change the station. But then Alan Jackson puts out the tender, sincere “Remember When” and you do sort of remember when country radio seemed relatable and engaging without crossing fully over into simplistic and pandering. Or maybe even propagandizing, like Toby Keith with “American Soldier.” Don’t get me wrong, I think he meant every word when he sang it and had legit gratitude and respect for US troops. But the mainstream radio business making sure everyone hears it every hour on the hour feels like an overplayed hand no matter the original intent.

Presumably they played the hell out of Tim McGraw’s “Watch the Wind Blow By” too if it spent two weeks at #1, but I don’t recall it and after a listen my memory remains stubbornly unjogged. Not a bad tune, it’s got a little country-soul pulse to it and some decent lovey-dovey lyrics. But it’s hardly unforgettable and maybe a sign that I was checking out as a listener around this era. I do remember Kenny Chesney teaming up with non-country Kid Rock cohort Uncle Kracker for the beachy midtempo party tune “When the Sun Goes Down,” but I recall it more from people complaining about it than actually hearing it. Folks were expressing suspicion at the idea of dragging in B-listers from other genres, as if Kenny Chesney was incapable of cranking out genreless fluff all by himself; really, just taken on its own lightweight merits, it’s far from the worst song of the year.

I do recall Keith Urban’s “You’ll Think of Me” fairly well, seems it was on constantly, it’s a slow one but still hooky enough to get stuck in your head. Not much meat on the bone, but Urban’s subtle delivery is seldom hard to listen to. “Mayberry,” by Rascal Flatts, is another story. Lead singer Gary LeVox’s tenor could get outta hand quick, sandpaper to the ears even if he’s technically hitting the notes, sort of like a country version of Rush. I don’t know who this song was supposed to be for, invoking the fictional town from The Andy Griffith Show as a framework for a bunch of clunky, insipid lines that could’ve been about pretty much any small town ever … were fans of that show even listening to mainstream country radio anymore? To me it seemed like RF was pretty much always pitched to the teen girl audience who didn’t even remember Matlock, much less vintage Griffith. But maybe that strategy hadn’t kicked in yet for them.

If you were wishing they’d get back to giving female artists a chance, you may have wanted your wish back with newcomer Gretchen Wilson and “Redneck Woman.” On one hand, she could sing her ass off, and befitting her brash approach she looked and dressed more like the barmaid at a biker bar than the Disney princesses you tend to end up with nowadays. But the song was kind of unfortunate, a string of shout-outs to familiar brands and people (Wal Mart, Bocephus, Barbie) that felt way less authentic than Wilson herself probably was. The sort-of-new duo Montgomery Gentry leaned pretty hard into the brash shitkicker aesthetic and often did it in service of some pretty good material (“She Couldn’t Change Me,” for example); they were about a half-decade into their chart life when “If You Ever Stop Loving Me” scored them their first #1 for some reason. It’s a big thumpy track with a lot of big guitars dueling it out, there’s just not much hook or lyrical depth to distinguish it. Toby Keith could’ve well been singing about a Gretchen Wilson-esque party gal on “Whiskey Girl,” with lines like “she needs somethin’ with a little more edge and a little more pain” perhaps coming on a little stronger than Keith even intended. A lot of that gentlemanly George Strait stuff seemed to be going out the window in favor of lots of self-styled redneck attitude.

Not always, though. Tim McGraw didn’t have a perfect batting average when it came to picking material, but he was more likely than most to go with a thoughtful, mature number like “Live Like You Were Dying.” A memorable tale of cancer scares and bucket-list dreams and renewed appreciation for life, it’d probably hit harder if I was hearing it for the first time in my current middle age, but even as a relative pup I respected the craft and sincerity. Canadian cowgirl Terri Clark took another ride to the top with the upbeat, sort-of-amusing “Girls Lie Too,” a bit of cheeky pushback against us smug bumbling dudes in the audience. Reba McEntire of all people popped back in for a week with “Somebody” – hey, we haven’t been great about promoting new women, but turns out we had some good ones right here all along! But maybe the shipment of singles didn’t make it to Bryan-College Station because again, I don’t remember this song at all. It sounds more Broadway than country and hinges around some awkward rhymes and plot twists. It’s like a four-minute romantic comedy that still somehow feels too long. McGraw boomeranged back around her one week on top and held down #1 for the rest of the summer.

Keith Urban scored again with a busy mid-tempo number called “Days Go By” that I guess I always assumed was one of his other similar-sounding busy mid-tempo numbers. Some of this stuff makes you wonder how many people actively loved this stuff as opposed to just accepting it; despite Urban’s chops, it’s all pretty weightless and indistinct. Just a vague “live life to the fullest” message that barely distracts, much less inspires. Sara Evans’ “Suds in the Bucket” had more lyrical charm and a more memorable hook, not to mention some big tasty doses of fiddle and steel guitar and lots of telegenic camera flirting in the video (yes I had a crush on her, sue me). Folks were having a breezy good time until George Strait sauntered in and went memorably dour with “I Hate Everything,” which may well have reflected how he was starting to feel about this chart. But really, it’s a song about a beleaguered divorcee cathartically spilling his guts to a stranger in a bar who’s immediately inspired to go home and mend fences with his hopefully-just-temporarily-pissed-off wife. Though it ends on a hopeful note and doesn’t go to the rip-your-heart out emotive extremes of, say, “Chiseled in Stone,” it was just nice to have someone dishing up unmistakable sad country songs in the top spot (and really unsurprising who it ended up being).

Motormouthed cheesemeister Phil Vassar swooped in again with “In a Real Love,” which sounds like a fast-talking, slightly retooled theme song to some ’80 family sitcom nobody remembers. His next single was called “I’ll Take That As A Yes (The Hot Tub Song),” it didn’t earn #1 consideration but you can certainly go listen to it if you want to. Not to be outdone, Lonestar came along and outshit the bed with what may well be the dad-country nadir: “Mr. Mom.” Not to be associated with the perfectly-acceptable Michael Keaton comedy film (Keaton should sue their ass), I’m sure the song thought it was pretty damn clever with its tale of a bumbling dad laid off from work who takes over childcare so his wife can bring home the bacon for a while. And yeah I guess there probably were some listeners who chuckled and said “ain’t that the truth?” or words to that effect at the lines about Pampers in the dryer or melted crayons or Barney etc. but I don’t see why the hell anyone would want to hear this more than once unless the members of Lonestar owed them money. And even then it’s not worth it.

Gary Allan singing about two young lovers with “Nothing On But the Radio” isn’t the most original wordplay you’ll likely hear but it sounds like the absolute soul of wit compared to some of the crap piled around it. Plus it’s got a nice little groove and Allan singing it; by 2004 standards it’s aces. Tim McGraw came shufflin’ back in with “Back When,” a stack of folksy one-liners yearning for a simpler time that just rings a little false coming from someone who was a bona-fide superstar by then. “I’m readin’ Street Slang for Dummies/Cause they put pop in my country,” McGraw sings, and nice a guy as he seems to be that’s kind of like pissing down your neck and telling you it’s rainin’. Just because he never managed to de-twang his voice doesn’t mean that he wasn’t also at least sometimes trying to cram as much synthetic gloss into a “country” song as whoever this particular song might’ve been pointing fingers at. Maybe I’m just thinking too hard about all this. I like some of his stuff, I don’t mean to be a grouch but the mid-aughts are starting to get to me kind of like they did back then.

The year ended with Blake Shelton doing a pretend-grouch act on “Some Beach.” Yes it’s supposed to sound like you’re pronouncing “sumbitch,” and yes that’s about as funny as it gets, but it doesn’t overplay its hand and it is fairly tuneful and charming. Guess we can talk about that in 2005 where it spent most of its #1 run. The way things are going it might be the greatest song of that particular year.   

THE TREND?

I don’t actually hate everything, but man it’s getting harder to love any of it. Bless George Strait and Alan Jackson for hanging in there; at this point it’d been four years since they recorded the lament/critique “Murder on Music Row” and though it hadn’t gotten them ridden out of town on a rail by a bunch of ingrates, it also didn’t seem to change enough hearts or minds to affect the top of the charts much. The wholesome suburban sheen of it all – again, that jokey dad-country stuff is the worst - seemed to only occasionally break for bursts of half-hearted rebellion or actual messy emotion. The previous year they’d had to break the aging likes of Willie Nelson and Jimmy Buffett out to give things much of a spark; this year the go-to collaborator was [checks notes] Uncle Kracker. If you were into wit and soul and heartache this not only wasn’t your year, it was one that made you wonder if you’d ever see it again without looking to back when.

THE RANKING

1. I Hate Everything – George Strait
2. Remember When – Alan Jackson
3. Suds in the Bucket – Sara Evans
4. Live Like You Were Dying – Tim McGraw
5. Girls Lie Too – Terri Clark
6. American Soldier – Toby Keith
7. Nothing On But the Radio – Gary Allan
8. Watch the Wind Blow By – Tim McGraw
9. Some Beach – Blake Shelton
10. When the Sun Goes Down – Kenny Chesney & Uncle Kracker
11. Whiskey Girl – Toby Keith
12. Back When – Tim McGraw
13. Redneck Woman – Gretchen Wilson
14. You’ll Think of Me – Keith Urban
15. There Goes My Life – Kenny Chesney
16. Days Go By – Keith Urban
17. If You Ever Stop Loving Me – Montgomery Gentry
18. Somebody – Reba McEntire
19. In a Real Love – Phil Vassar
20. Mayberry – Rascal Flatts
21. Mr. Mom - Lonestar

DOWN THE ROAD ...

We're well into the phase where any vaguely high-profile versions of most of these #1s are gonna be performances by semi-celebs from TV singing competitions and/or YouTube channels (there's definitely some overlap there). Likeable young dude Jackson Snelling is one of those ... shortly after Toby Keith's way-too-young passing, he paid timely tribute with his take on "American Soldier." Very nice version, and a bit of a hill to climb tackling a song so closely associated with not only a famous singer but the most famous side of his persona. Between his vocal talents, early start, and the solid production value on these videos, it's not hard to imagine Snelling having his own #1 one of these days.