Songoftheday 10/24/21 - My life was complete I thought I was whole, why do I feel like I'm losing control?

 

 

"God Must Have Spent A Little More Time On You" - Alabama with 'NSYNC

from the album Twentieth Century (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #29 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 11

 

Today's song comes from the country music band Alabama, who were last on this series a full eight years ago with their top-40 crossover hit from 1983, "The Closer You Get". At that time, they had already racked up with that song ten #1 hits on Billboard magazine's Country Singles chart, and had one more from the album with "Lady Down On Love", which also climbed to #18 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart and #76 on the pop Hot 100. 

The group's next release, Roll On in 1984, was their first set to score four #1 country radio hits with "Roll On (Eighteen Wheeler)", "If You're Gonna Play In Texas (You've Gotta Have A Fiddle In The Band)", "(There's A) Fire In The Night", and the biggest one, "When We Make Love", which hit #72 on the Hot 100 and #8 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary list. "If You're Gonna Play In Texas" was nominated for a Grammy for Best Country Duo/Group Performance, losing to the Judds for "Mama He's Crazy" from their debut album. The following year, Alabama returned with 40 Hour Week, which spun off three more country charttoppers with "There's No Way", "40 Hour Week (For A Livin')", and "Can't Keep A Good Man Down", with the latter getting the Grammy nomination which went to the Judds again for their Why Not Me debut album. In 1986, they released their first Greatest Hits album, which sold over five million copies and even produced another #1 country hit with "She And I", which again got the band nominated for Best Duo/Group Country Vocal Performance, which again the Judds took home for "Grandpa (Tell Me 'Bout The Good Ol' Days)". 

Later that year, Alabama came back with The Touch, which landed #1 country hits with a remake of the Carpenters' hit "Touch Me When We're Dancing" as well as ""You've Got" The Touch". They also appeared on Lionel Richie's Dancing On The Ceiling album on the track "Deep River Woman", which popped on to the Hot 100 chart at #71, while reaching #10 on the Country Singles list. 

By that time, they have had a string of 21 consecutive #1 hits on country radio, so it was rather a surprise that the lead single from their 1987 release Just Us, "Tar Top", stalled at the still-high rank of #7, but then had both "Face To Face" and "Fallin' Again" redeem the set at #1. After a concert album, Alabama Live, was put out in 1988, Alabama returned the following year with Southern Star, which again landed four #1 country hits with "Song Of The South", "If I Had You", "High Cotton", and "Southern Star". They closed out the decade on a big high, with all their non-seasonal studio album from second effort Feels So Right to Southern Star along with the Greatest Hits and Alabama Live record reaching #1 on Billboard's Country Albums sales chart.

The 90's dawned in with the band releasing Pass It On Down, which placed five of its twelve songs in the top three on the Country Singles chart, with three hitting the top: "Down Home", "Forever's As Far As I'll Go" (which returned them to the Adult Contemporary pop radio chart at #15), and "Jukebox In My Mind". That latter song, which spent a month at #1 for their longest stay at the top, was nominated for that Country Duo/Group Grammy again, which went to the Kentucky Headhunters for their Pickin' On Nashville debut album, while "Forever" got the nomination a year later, which the Judds won for "Love Can Build A Bridge". That was followed by a second Greatest Hits II compilation, which scored another pair of top ten country hits, with "Then Again", which hit #4 at country radio, becoming their most recent Adult Contemporary crossover hit at #33. 

Alabama's fourteen studio album, American Pride, came out in 1992, and the set as a whole got the Grammy Country Duo/Group nomination, which went to Emmylou Harris and Nash Ramblers for their At The Ryman concert album. The second of its four top ten country hits, "I'm In A Hurry (And Don't Know Why)", was its sole #1. A year later, Cheap Seats came out, which has their most recent #1 country hit as a lead artist, "Reckless". 

As the decade went on, their string of #1 hits at country radio may have stopped, but they consistently were a presence for the rest of the decade, with 1997's "Dancin', Shaggin' On The Boulevard" (#3 Country Singles) earning Alabama another Grammy nomination, which bluegrass heroes Alison Krauss and Union Station took home for "Looking In The Eyes Of Love". The band did it again the following year with "How Do You Fall In Love", which hit #2 at country radio and brought them back to the Hot 100 at #82. The song lost that year's Grammy to the (Dixie) Chicks for "There's Your Trouble". "How Do You Fall In Love" was from their double-disc For The Record collection, which got to #13 on the Billboard 200 sales tally and going five times platinum (2 1/2 million copies of a double set). The second single from For The Record, "Keepin' Up", was their first to benefit from Billboard magazine changing their chart rules on the Hot 100 to allow radio-only hits to appear, and went to #69 on that list.

 

For Alabama's final studio album of the 1990's Twentieth Century, they came with a "ringer". The lead single was a remake of the pop top ten hit from the insanely popular boy-band NSYNC, "(God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time On You". The song was just peaking in February of 1999. Written by Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers (of Rythm Syndicate), the smooth love song was there to get the young men an older audience, which it succeeded but hitting the top ten on Billboard's Adult Contemporary radio chart...

Now Alabama's version produced by Don Cook, came out that April, and featured NSYNC on background vocals, which they brazenly advertised though I cannot really tell their voices in the production. The boyband doesn't appear in the music video, but Randy Owen, Jeff Cook, Teddy Gentry, and Mark Herndon try their best to ape their swagger in the clip. Aside from the "snap-track" percussion, the country instrumentation seems a better fit for this simple of a song, and Randy's earnest delivery makes it somewhat more palatable for girlfriends, wives, or even daughters...

Alabama's take on "God Must Have Spent..." returned them to the pop Hot 100 Top-40 for the first time in sixteen years in August of 1999. The song spent three weeks at #3 on Billboard's Country Singles chart, for their final top ten hit as a lead artist. Internationally, the cover went to #1 on the Canadian Country Singles chart. The Twentieth Century album, released in June of 1999, went to #51 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #5 on the Country Albums list, going on to sell over a half million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2000, the song was nominated for Best Country Vocal Collaboration, which they lost to the trio of Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt for their cover of Neil Young's "After The Gold Rush". 

Despite the success of that lead single, or maybe because of it, the next release from Twentieth Century, "Small Stuff", stopped down at #24 on the Country Singles chart, while only "bubbling under" the pop Hot 100 at #110. That was followed by title track "Twentieth Century", which stalled down at #51 on the Country Singles list, but at least was nominated for their most recent Country Duo/Group Grammy Award, which went to traditionalists Asleep At The Wheel for "Cherokee Maiden". Lastly, "We Made Love" was a minor country radio hit at #63.

 

The band's next album, When It All Goes South, arrived in 2001, and brought them back into the Billboard 200 top-40 at #37. Seemingly a "swan song" set at the time, the record was their first to not have at least a top ten country radio hit (I guess the decade shift they narrowly avoided in 1990 came to pass ten years later), with title cut "When It All Goes South" (an embarrassing attempt at a rap-country delivery with a confederate-revisionist message) topping out at #15 on the Country Singles chart, while "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #110. Their tour behind the record was dubbed their "Farewell Tour".  

In the 2000's the band released a trio of Gospel albums, with 2006's Songs Of Inspiration topping Billboard's Country Albums chart and reaching #15 on the Billboard 200. However, Owen, Gentry, and Cook (all cousins) tossed drummer Mark Herndon over a dispute over royalties (which honestly left a bad taste in my mouth about them). In 2008, Owen released a solo album One On One, which went to #14 on the Country Albums chart, and #77 on the Billboard 200, but even the biggest of the two singles, "Like I Never Broke Her Heart", stalled right under the Country Singles top-40 at #41. 

While Alabama's most recent studio album of new material, Southern Drawl, was released in 2015, going to #14 on the Billboard 200 and #2 on the Country Albums list, the band did get another moment in the sun, and will be back to the series as a featured artist.

(5/10)

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Here's Alabama and NSYNC performing the song together...

Up tomorrow: Canadian chanteuse revives her old song for a memorable hit.