Robbed hit of the week 4/11/22 - Clint Black & Steve Wariner's "Been There"...

 

 

"Been There" - Clint Black and Steve Wariner

from the album D'Electrified (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #44 (three weeks)

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from singer Clint Black, who after almost a decade on country radio finally landed his first crossover top-40 hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 with a duet with his wife Lisa Hartman Black, "When I Say I Do", at the close of 1999. For the follow-up Clint teamed up with another country music artist that landed his first crossover success after an even longer wait, Steve Wariner. Wariner's "Two Teardrops" made the top-40 twenty years after his debut single earlier that year. Their collaboration, "Been There", written by the pair, was a mid-tempo number offering three unwanted scenarios that they don't want to repeat, and asking the listener have they ever "been there" as well. It's a simple song with simple lyrics, but easy-going, witty enough, and the two both lend an easy-going comfortableness that makes it not seem like a bitter song. The video has them with their harmonica and guitar respectively, and the "Get back, Steve" is a cute touch...

While "Been There" made it up to #5 on Billboard's Country Singles chart, the song stopped just short of the "pop" crossover top-40 in April of 2000. Internationally, the single topped the Canadian Country chart. 

A third single from the D'Electrified album, the ballad "Love She Can't Live Without", stopped down at #30 on the Country radio chart. 

(7/10)