Songoftheday 5/24/21 - Well I wonder what it's like to be the rainmaker, I wonder what it's like to know that I made the rain...
"Real World" - Matchbox 20
from the album Yourself or Someone Like You (1997)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #38 (one week)
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #9 (seven weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 30
Today's song of the day comes from the rock band Matchbox 20, whose debut album Yourself or Someone Like You had already spun off a pair of top ten radio hits with "Push" and "3AM". The next song from the record promoted to radio was "Real World", written by lead singer Rob Thomas and produced by Matt Serletic. In the song Rob ponders if he were a different fantastical person than the way he is, and the troubles involved in them. The music video, well the clip has Thomas walking a camel through a bowling alley (coke was a thing in the 90s), as his bandmate are put in other scenes (and one in drag).
Since "Real World", like the previous two hits, wasn't put out commercially as a retail "single", it initially wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart, although it had enough radio love to make it to the top ten on the airplay component of the tally in August of 1998. When the trade bible changed their chart rules to allow album tracks on to the list, the song still had enough airplay points to get into the top 40 that December. The track also made the top ten on both the Mainstream (#17) and Alternative (#13) Rock radio charts. But its biggest success was at the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, where it spent five weeks at #3. Internationally, the single peaked at #5 in Canada and #40 in Australia, and was a minor hit in the UK at #92 and Germany at #99.
(6/10)
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Here's the band performing "Real World" for a TV appearance...
and finally, in concert in 2003...
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