Songoftheday 9/11/22 - Once I thought that love was something I could never do, never knew that I could feel this much...

 

 

"Ain't Nothing 'Bout You" - Brooks & Dunn

from the album Steers & Stripes (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #25 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 12

 

Today's song comes from the country music duo Brooks & Dunn, who had dominated the 1990's in Nashville before finally grabbing a crossover hit at the end of 1998 (thanks for a change in rules at Billboard magazine) with their cover of the oldie "Husbands and Wives".  Their next album, Tight Rope, was led off by another remake, but this time of a pop song, John Waite's #1 hit from 1984 "Missing You". However, neither fans nor radio approved this move, and the single stalled down at #15 on Billboard's country airplay chart, and #75 on the pop Hot 100 (a dismal showing for them). The third single from the record, "You'll Always Be Loved By Me", made it up to #5 on the country chart and #55 on the Hot 100, and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Duo/Group Country Vocal Performance, losing to Asleep At The Wheel for their rehash of the 40's tune "Cherokee Maiden". The album peaked at #31 on the Billboard 200, their lowest-charting non-seasonal studio album, while only selling about a half-million. Sensing a larger blip in their momentum, the pair almost split. 

Of course they were talked out of it by their label (I mean, a brand is a brand), and the duo returned in 2001 with their seventh studio release Steers & Stripes. The first single from the record was the uptempo swagger of "Ain't Nothing 'Bout You". Written by Music Row vets Rivers Rutherford and Tom Shapiro, the track is a pretty basic by-the-numbers love song that exalts the girlfriend/wife in question, but it's Ronnie Dunn's passionate delivery that always sells these types of songs, and the pair's voices blend better here than on any record they've had before. And since it was a return to "pure country", if that's what you call their brand of reused rock guitar licks, it definitely accomplished what it set out to do, scoring the biggest country radio hit of their career, and tied for the highest mark on the pop chart as well...

"Ain't Nothing 'Bout You" became Brooks & Dunn's second top-40 crossover hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in June of 2001. The song spent six weeks at #1 on the Country Airplay chart, the biggest hit of the year according on the magazine. The Steers & Stripes album, released in April of that year, went to #4 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, while topping the Country Albums list for a week, going on to sell over a million records. At the Grammy Awards in 2002, "Ain't Nothing 'Bout You" was nominated for Best Country Duo/Group Performance with Vocal, losing to bluegrass queen Alison Krauss & Union Station for "The Lucky One". Both Brooks & Dunn and the album will be back to the series.

(7/10)

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Here's the group premiering the song on the Tonight Show...

Next up, at the ACM Awards, where the pair won Entertainer Of The Year...

and lastly for their AOL Sessions in 2004...

Up tomorrow: Mrs. Affleck is into some games.