Songoftheday 7/16/21 - I woke up and called this morning, the tone of your voice was a warning that you don't care for me anymore...
"My Favorite Mistake" - Sheryl Crow
from the album The Globe Sessions (1998)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #20 (after rules change)
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #9 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9
Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 21
Today's song of the day comes from singer/songwriter/producer Sheryl Crow, whose self-titled sophomore album in 1996 had sold millions, captured two Grammy Awards, and spun off three big pop radio hits with "A Change Will Do You Good", "Everyday Is A Winding Road", and the top ten single "If It Makes You Happy". After a little break to regroup, Crow returned in 1998 with her third disc The Globe Sessions, referring to the New York recording studio at which the set was made. The lead track from the record promoted to radio was "My Favorite Mistake", written by Crow with her guitarist Jeff Trott. Produced by Sheryl, people assumed it was about Crow's recent fling with guitar god Eric Clapton, which she flatly denies, though the timing and the lyrics do tend to make one think so. The verses are quite dark, with bitter asides about cheating and pretending to be in love when one's not, but the backdrop is a little brighter jangle-pop that belies the words, as by the end she's resigned that the person she's singing to was her true soulmate in her mind. Nevertheless, the fans clings on to this whether the cause or not and brought Crow back to rock and pop radio yet again...
Since "My Favorite Mistake" wasn't released as a commercial single, it initially wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart. However, the track had enough radio spins to make it all the way to the top ten of the airplay component of the tally in November of 1998. And the following week, when the music business trade bible changed the rules to allow album cuts to appear on the list from radio alone, the song still had enough gas even without sales to take nine weeks in the top-40. It was a big success on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 radio format, spending three weeks at #2, while landing her final Alternative Rock airplay hit at #26. Internationally, the single made the top ten in both Canada (#2) and the UK (#9), while reaching the top-40 in New Zealand (#16), Switzerland (#29), and Iceland (#35). The Globe Sessions album, released in September of that year, rose to #5 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to spend over a year on the list and sell over a million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 1999, "My Favorite Mistake" was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, losing out to Celine Dion's unstoppable "My Heart Will Go On". The Globe Sessions album won Grammys for Best Rock Album and Best Non-Classical Engineered Album, losing the Album of the Year to Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill and losing Producer of the Year honors to Rob Cavallo.
Despite the warm reception for "My Favorite Mistake", things weren't as easy for the follow-up, "There Goes The Neighborhood", which missed the pop Hot 100 completely and only placed on Billboard's Triple-A (Adult Album Alternative) Rock radio format list, rising to #2. (It shocked me, as it was my favorite cut on the album.) The song did go to #4 in Canada, and was nominated at the 1999 Grammys for Best Female Rock Vocal, which Alanis Morissette took home for "Uninvited". However, the track got a second chance two years later, when a live version from her Central Park concert album won the prize at the 2001 Grammys. A third offering from the Globe Sessions, "Anything But Down", did better, going to #7 on Billboard's Adult Top-40 chart, and #1 on the Triple-A rock list, though it stalled under the Hot 100 pop Top-40 at #49. Sheryl will return to the series.
(7/10)
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Here's Sheryl performing "My Favorite Mistake" for a television appearance in 1998...
Next up, playing with the alleged subject himself, Eric Clapton...
Here we have Sheryl live in concert in 2010 in Memphis...
and lastly, Crow and "My Favorite Mistake" co-writer Jeff Trott doing an acoustic take in 2017...
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