Songoftheday 2/3/22 - Well he used to be mine not so very long ago, I was crazy to ever let him get away...

 

 

"Big Deal" - LeAnn Rimes

from the album LeAnn Rimes (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #23 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 10

 

Today's song comes from country/pop singer LeAnn Rimes, who was last seen on the series on her duet with Elton John on "Written In The Stars" from the Broadway show Aida, which reached the pop top-40 in the spring of 1999.  Later that year, Rimes returned with her self-titled fifth album. The set seemed like a filler more than an evolution, with all but one of the dozen tracks being a cover song, with the majority being ones made famous by Patsy Cline, whose voice LeAnn had been compared to at her start. The one original, "Big Deal", came at the end, and was released as the sole single from the record in America. Written by Al Anderson and Jeffrey Steele, the bouncy kiss-off neo-swing number is much more suited to the young and vibrant image she was growing to portray. Telling off the new woman of her ex, she can't help from admitting from the start that she "was crazy to ever let him get away", though she tries her best to "shake it off", as Taylor Swift might say...

"Big Deal" returned Rimes to the crossover pop top-40 in January of 2000. The song also rose to #6 on Billboard magazine's Country Singles chart. Internationally, the single peaked at #3 on the Canadian Country chart. The LeAnn Rimes album, released in October of 1999, scored the singer her fifth consecutive top ten album at #8 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, while topping Billboard's Country Albums list, going on to sell over a million copies. That's not bad for someone who just turned eighteen when this hit.

While "Big Deal" was the only track from LeAnn Rimes to make notice on American radio, her cover of Patsy Cline's iconic "Crazy" was released as a single overseas, and made the British top-40 at #36. LeAnn will return to the series.

(7/10)

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Here's LeAnn performing "Big Deal" on Jay Leno's Tonight Show...

and also that year on the MDA Telethon...

and lastly, from a televised concert in 2000...

Up tomorrow: Female rapper counts up.