Robbed hit of the week 4/5/21 - Jo Dee Messina's "Bye Bye" and "It's Alright"...

 

 

"Bye Bye" / "I'm Alright" - Jo Dee Messina

from the album I'm Alright (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #43

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from country singer Jo Dee Messina, Born in the decidedly non-southern state of Massachussetts, Messina moved to Nashville to start a career. Helped along by producer Byron Gallimore and an up and coming singer named Tim McGraw, Messina signed with Curb Records and released her self-titled debut album in 1996. That set spawned off two top ten country hits in "Heads Carolina, Tails California" and "You're Not In Kansas Anymore", with the former "bubbling under" the pop Hot 100 list at #111.  The album, which never made it past #146 on the Billboard 200, still went on to sell over a half a million copies.

Two years later, Messina returned with her second record, I'm Alright. The lead single from the album was "Bye-Bye", a fun, uptempo kiss-off written by Phil Vassar (who will eventually find himself in this series) and Rory Bourke. Telling an indecisive and probably fly-by-night guy she isn't sticking around, Jo Dee's sassy delivery perfectly fit the tone of the two-stepping winner, with an air of self-assuredness after putting up with too much of his bullpucky. And the prominent electric guitars make this just as much a rock song as a country song...

 

"Bye Bye" became Messina's first country #1 hit, and gave the singer her first try on the pop Hot 100 tally, coming just below the top-40 in April of 1998. Meanwhile, the "B-Side" of the single was promoted as the next "single" for country radio. "I'm Alright", also written by Vassar and produced by Gallimore and McGraw, was possibly the flipside of that situation, running into an old love years later and seeing how their lives have forked off in different directions, while reminiscing more fondly on their past, but realizing they're both where they need to be...

"I'm Alright" followed "Bye Bye" into the top spot on the Country Songs chart that August. The I'm Alright album, released in March, peaked at #61 on the Billboard 200 sales tally (and #5 on the country albums list), going on to sell over two million copies. It will also bring Jo Dee to the Song of the Day series as well. 

Bye Bye: (10/10)                           I'm Alright: (8/10)

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Here's Jo Dee performing "Bye Bye" at the CMA Fest in 2010...

and lastly, "I'm Alright" with the Air Force Band in 2011...