Robbed hit of the week 7/19/21 - Everclear's "Father Of Mine"...

 

 

"Father Of Mine" - Everclear

from the album So Much For The Afterglow (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #70 (after the rules change)

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #46

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from the alternative rock band Everclear, who had landed in the radio airplay top-40 in America in the summer of 1998 with "I Will Buy You A New Life".  That song followed their second #1 rock radio hit "Everything To Everyone", both from their album So Much For The Afterglow. The third offering from the record was one that detailed lead singer/songwriter Art Alexakis' upbringing, "Father Of Mine". Written with bandmates Greg Eklund and Craig Montoya, with Art co-producing with Neil Avron, the song is about how Art's dad left he and his mother behind and their struggles in a new place, with vivid words about abuse and feeling outcast in their new home. He promises to never do that to his own child (even though he indeed didn't stay with the mother), and says he's learned from it. It's heavy stuff for a rock record, but Alexakis and the band keep the musical tone light to help the medicine go down...

Since "Father Of Mine", like "I Will Buy You A New Life", wasn't released as a retail "single", probably to goose sales of the album, it wasn't initially able to place on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart. However the song got enough radio spins to just miss making it into the top-40 of the airplay component of the tally in November of 1998. When the music industry trade bible finally changed its rules to allow album tracks to chart on airplay alone, it still was able to show on the list for a few weeks. The song climbed to #4 on Billboard's Alternative Rock radio chart, and #29 on the Mainstream Rock list, and crossed over to #23 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format chart, spending a half year on the list.

(8/10)

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Here's Everclear performing "Father Of Mine" on the Conan O'Brien show in 1998...

Next up, in concert in 2000...

This is Art alone at a Guitar Center promo gig...

...and on the Jam In The Van series in 2018...

and lastly, an interview with Art about the song...