Songoftheday 10/10/21 - Baby I bought wine and roses on my way home, yeah I know we can't afford it but life doesn't last too long...

 

 

"Anyone Else" - Collin Raye

from the album The Walls Came Down (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #37 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 4

 

Today's song comes from country singer Collin Raye, who after running a string of big country hits through the 1990s finally scored a top-40 single on the "pop" Hot 100 in Billboard magazine at the close of 1998 with "Someone You Used To Know".  Raye's third single from his Walls Come Down album was the uptempo love song "Anyone Else", written by Radney Foster, who had his own big success back in 1993 with the top ten country radio hit "Nobody Wins". Produced by Raye with Billy Joe Walker Jr. and Paul Worley, the song lyrics are an expression of thanks to his partner for sticking around when things were bad, when "anyone else" would've taken off. It's a simple ordinary-man confession that Raye sells well with his sunny high tenor. There's no big happy ending, just a static appreciation that people can relate to, although the "warm kisses on skin" line still makes me cringe just a little...

"Anyone Else" became Collin's second, and as of now last, top-40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in June of 1999. The song climbed to #4 on Billboard's Country Singles chart. Internationally, the single went all the way to #1 on the Canadian Country list. 

A fourth release from the album, the waltz-timed "Start Over Georgia", stopped down at #39 on the Country Singles chart.

A year later, Raye returned with his sixth studio album Tracks. Lead single "Couldn't Last A Moment" spent two weeks at #3 on Billboard's Country Singles chart, while just missing the top-40 on the Hot 100 at #43. However, that song would end up being Collin's final top-40 hit on that list. In 2003, the singer guested on Jim Brickman's lite-pop single "Peace (Where The Heart Is)" with Susan Ashton, which went to #15 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio format chart. It was on Brickman's album Peace, which got nominated for a Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album. Raye had a handful of minor country radio hits through the 2000's, ending with "A Soldier's Prayer", which peaked at #59 in 2007. After his seventh album, Can't Back Down, stopped at #39 on the Country Albums chart in 2001, like so many Nashville artists at the turn of every decade, Collin was shuffled out of Epic Records.. Since then the singer has released seven studio albums independently, with his 2009 release Never Going Back doing the best, making it to #40 on the Country Albums sales chart. His most recent album Scars came out in 2020. 

(7/10)

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Here's Collin performing "Anyone Else" at a small venue in 2012...

And lastly, performing for the show Larry's Country Diner in 2017...

Up tomorrow: R&B singer proclaims her coupleship.