Songoftheday 10/31/21 - Every time our eyes meet, this feeling inside me is almost more than I can take...

 

 

"Amazed" - Lonestar

from the album Lonely Grill (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 43

 

Today's song comes from the country music band Lonestar, five Texans who came together in Nashville in the early 1990s. Originally called Texassee, the newly dubbed Lonestar originally featured two members who sung lead with guitarist Richie McDonald and bassist John Rich. Signed to the BNA record label under the Sony umbrella, the band released their eponymous debut album in 1995. First single "Tequila Talkin'" made it on to the Country Singles top ten in Billboard magazine at #8, followed by the comical break-up song "No News", which went all the way to the top of that list for three weeks. Both songs were put together on a retail single, and the pair "bubbled under" the crossover Hot 100 at #122. The Lonestar album just missed the top ten on the Billboard Country Albums chart at #11, while peaking at #69 on the all-genre Billboard 200 sales tally. Half of the album's tracks were led by McDonald, and half by Rich, but of the five singles that made the country radio chart only one of them, "Heartbroke Every Day", was one of Rich's (#18 country). 

 

The group returned in 1997 with their sophomore effort, Crazy Nights, in which Rich only appeared on two of the album tracks and none of the singles. Lead single "Come Cryin' To Me" (which Rich co-wrote) landed their second #1 country hit for two weeks. That was followed by "You Walked In", which was written by Shania Twain's husband/producer Mutt Lange and Canadian pop star Bryan Adams, missed the Country Singles top ten at #12, but was their first to cross over to Billboard's Hot 100 at #93. (It truly sounds like a Twain Come On Over outtake.) Another song from the set, "Everything's Changed", which McDonald co-wrote, spent a week at #2 on the Country Singles chart and scored a second Hot 100 placing at #95. But by that time, Rich had already left the group to embark on a solo career, and didn't appear in the video. He eventually became half of the duo Big & Rich, which will appear on this series.

McDonald, lead guitarist Michael Britt, keyboard player Dean Sams, and drummer Keech Rainwater continued as a quartet, and released their third album Lonely Grill in 1999. They had a false start with the first single, "Saturday Night", which relatively "flopped" stalling at #47 on the Country Singles chart. For the follow-up, Lonestar went with the "power-ballad" of the album, "Amazed". Written by Marv Green, Chris Lindsey, and Aimee Mayo, the love song was wedding-reception fodder taken to the extreme, with the swelling production giving McDonald's brash delivery even more oomph. The result was their third #1 country hit for two months, staying on top from July to September, and crossing over to Billboard's Hot 100 chart at #24...

Long after the song had run its course at country radio, and had a decent run on "easy listening" stations, spending five weeks at #2 at that format and spending 92 weeks on the list, it was completely revamped, taking away the whole band save for McDonald, who re-recorded his lead vocals to accommodate for two more key changes in the record, and put out to mainstream pop radio (using the same video with the new audio). Personally, I think the newer version was a downgrade, but I can understand the desire to make it palatable for a wider "pop" audience...

 

 

On its second run, "Amazed" climbed all the way to the top of the pop Hot 100 in March of 2000, the first country #1 since Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton's "Islands In The Stream" seventeen years prior in 1983. The song also went to #7 on Billboard's older-skewing Adult Top-40 radio chart, besides that five-week stay at #2 on the Adult Contemporary list that was lengthened by the remix. Internationally, the single became a big success as well, reaching the top ten in Ireland (#2), Canada (#7), and Norway (#10), while making the top-40 in New Zealand (#11), Australia (#19), the UK (#21), and Iceland (#25). The Lonely Grill album, released in June of 1999 as "Amazed" was peaking on country radio, went to #28 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #3 on the Country Albums list, their first in the top-40 and top ten respectively. At the Grammy Awards in 2000, "Amazed" was nominated for Best Duo/Group Country Performance, losing out to the (Dixie) Chicks for "Ready To Run". Both Lonestar and the Lonely Grill album will be back to the series.

Original: (8/10) Remix: (5/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the band appearing with a stripped down take on Top Of The Pops in England promoting the single...

In 2003, Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler, of "Total Eclipse of The Heart" fame, covered the song as a single from her Heart Strings album to little notice...

Three years later, former boyband member of Blue Duncan James also released a remake of "Amazed", just missing the top-40 in Italy at #41...

Fady Maalouf, who came in second on Germany's version of the Idol franchise, put out "Amazed" as his second single, and reached the top-40 in Germany at #26 in 2008...

 

 Back to Lonestar for a radio gig in 2012...

And lastly, before McDonald re-left the band in 2020...

Up tomorrow: Queen Bey and the girls are back, in debt perhaps.