Songoftheday 6/10/22 - I've got to be honest I think you know, we're covered in lies and that's okay...

 

 

"You're A God" - Vertical Horizon

from the album Everything You Want (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #23 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 13

 

Today's song comes from the rock group Vertical Horizon, who went straight to #1 on the American pop chart with the second single and title track from their album "Everything You Want" in the summer of 2000.  The third release from the record was the uptempo track "You're A God", written by lead singer Matt Scannell and produced by David Bendeth. In it Matt is seemingly addressing a lover who he puts on a pedestal, though the repeated "we're covered in lies and that's okay" line is a bit off. In fact, it's a lot of vague repetition of words and more attitude and melody than meaning in this one, but its hook grabs you quite steadily, as mixed for the single release by Tom Lord-Alge. Beverly Hills 90210's Tiffani Thiessen plays a disheveled beauty queen in the music video...

"You're A God" became Vertical Horizon's second and to date last top-40 hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 pop chart in November of 2000. The song climbed to #4 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 radio chart, went to #15 on the Alternative Rock format list, and topped out at #12 on the Adult Album Alternative (or "Triple-A") Rock radio panel . Internationally, the single peaked at #19 in Canada. 

A fourth single from the record, "Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)", went to #7 on the Adult Top-40 radio chart, but stopped down at #58 on the pop Hot 100. Country artist Gary Allen did an excellent cover of the song, already my favorite from their album, in 2005, which went to #7 on Billboard's Country Singles chart and #51 on the Hot 100. 

The band returned in 2003 with their next album, Go. However, RCA Records was in a shakeup which affected the promotion as much as the four-year break, and it managed to just spend three weeks on the Billboard 200 sales tally (as opposed to 71 weeks for Everything You Want) with a high of #61. Lead single "I'm Still Here" made it to #17 on the Adult Top-40 chart, followed by their attempt at a "power-ballad", "Forever", which was their sole entry on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") format list at #17, as well as #18 on Adult Top-40 stations. Lastly, "When You Cry" got to #35 on the Adult Top-40 list, their most recent charting single. Bass player Sean Hurley departed the lineup to be eventually replaced by Jeffrey Jarvis, as well as drummer Ed Toth who was switched out for Ron Lavella.

Parting ways with RCA, Vertical Horizon released Burning The Days on indie label Outfall Records, which spent a week at #158 on the Billboard 200 in 2010. Founding member Keith Kane left the band shortly after, and Scannell and the remaining members plus new guitarist Donovan White released a second album on Outfall, Echoes From The Underground in 2013, which popped on to the Billboard 200 at #164.

The group's most recent album, The Lost Mile, arrived in 2018, with new bass player Mark Pacificar. 

(7/10)

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Here's Scannell and the revamped band live in 2010...

Scannell appeared with Richard Marx on his PBS special A Night Out With Friends in 2013..

Lastly, here's Matt doing a quarantine acoustic take in 2020...

Up tomorrow: Neo-soul songstress hits the streets.