Robbed hit of the week 2/28/22 - Alan Jackson's "Pop A Top"...

 

 

"Pop A Top" - Alan Jackson

from the album Under The Influence (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #43

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from country artist Alan Jackson, who finally landed a top-40 crossover hit in the fall of 1999 with the fourth single from his extremely personal seventh album High Mileage, "Little Man". A month later that year, Jackson returned with his next studio album, Under The Influence. This record would be all remakes of classic country songs of the past. The lead single from the set goes back all the way to 1967 with "Pop A Top". Written by Nat Stuckey, the song was first successful by Jim Ed Brown, who spent two weeks at #3 on Billboard magazine's Country Singles chart. A merger of the "tears of a clown" and "drinking songs", "Pop A Top" has Alan swinging to the beat about sitting at the bar after having his woman dump him. It's done reverently but upbeat enough to dull the pain, much like beer does. "Redneck" comic Cletus T Judd stars in the music video, which has a Twilight Zone like transport of Judd to a fancy part, where things aren't at they seem...

Alan's take on "Pop A Top" came a few notches from reaching the top-40 on Billboard's pop Hot 100 chart in January of 2000. The song climbed to #6 on their Country Singles chart as well.  Internationally, the single went to #2 on the Canadian Country chart. The Under The Influence album, released in October of 1999, peaked at #9 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #2 on the Country Albums list, going on to sell over a million copies. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2001 for Best Country Album, which Faith Hill won for her Breathe record.

One of the other tracks from the album did make the top-40, and will be featured on my Song of the day series.

(9/10)

 

Here's Jim Ed Brown's "Pop A Top" from 1967, which hit #3 on the country chart...

 

 In 1999, Alan Jackson performed "Pop A Top" on the CMA Awards, and in the middle went to George Jones' song "Choices". The awards show screwed Jones over trying to get him to cut him appearance to 90 second, making Jones balk on the show, so Jackson did this in protest unannounced and walked off. Total bad-ass.

Lastly, Here's Jackson doing "Pop A Top" at Farm Aid 2000...