Robbed hit of the week 12/12/22 - Trisha Yearwood's "I Would've Loved You Anyway"...

 

 

"I Would've Loved You Anyway" - Trisha Yearwood

from the album Inside Out (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #44 (two weeks)

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from singer Trisha Yearwood, who enjoyed a prolific and successful career on country radio in the 1990s. However, despite racking up eighteen top ten hits on Billboard magazine's Country Songs chart, including five that went to #1, her only crossover success on their Hot 100 list was Yearwood's version of "How Do I Live" from the movie Con Air in the summer of 1997 (yes, the same song that LeAnn Rimes had a massive pop hit with). 

Yearwood's next album after that hit, which was on her first hits collection, Where Your Road Leads, again did decently on country radio, scoring three top ten hits, but out of the them "Powerful Thing" which did the best on the Hot 100 only made it to #50 (and that was after the trade bible's rule change allowing non-commercial singles to chart on airplay points). Her first set of the new millennium, Real Live Woman, was an mature affair that was tinged with the ending of her second marriage. It was critically heralded and at the time became the highest rank she got on the Billboard 200 sales tally at #27, but radio was colder, with lead single "Real Live Woman" stalling at #16 on the Country Songs chart, and #81 on the Hot 100. 

In the early summer of 2001, Trisha returned with her eighth studio effort on MCA Nashville Records Inside Out. Written by Mary Danna and Troy Verges, the song has Yearwood addressing a lover she is breaking up with. She's sad that it's ending, but not regretful that she was in the relationship, and explains how even if this is the end that she wants to take the memories of the good times forward. It's a very adult sentiment for this type of hurt, and Trisha has the seasoned but clear as a bell voice to carry it off without sounding fake. The song found favor with Nashville radio again, and the singer found herself back in the upper echelon of the country airplay chart for one final time (so far)...

While "I Would've Loved You Anyway" made it to #4 on Billboard's Country Songs chart, the single stopped a few notches away from the top-40 on the crossover Hot 100 in October of 2001. The Inside Out album, released in June of that year, came in at #29 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and spent a week at #1 on the Country Albums list, going on to sell over a half million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2002, "I Would've Loved You Anyway" was nominated for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, losing to Dolly Parton for her bluegrass comeback cover of Collective Soul's "Shine". The Inside Out album was also up for the Best Country Album Grammy, which was given to the various artist collection Timeless: A Hank Williams Tribute (a ringer full of mostly famous rock stars). 

The second single from Inside Out was the title track, a collaboration with rock legend Don Henley, with who she had a top ten country hit way back in 1992 with "Walkaway Joe". Despite the attention from the reunion, the song stalled down at #31 on the Country Songs chart. "Inside Out" was nominated for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals at the 2002 Grammys, which went home with the "Soggy Mountain Boys" led by Union Station's Dan Tyminski for the O Brother Where Art Thou song "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow". That was followed by "I Don't Paint Myself Into Corners", which stopped at #47 on the Country Songs list. 

(6/10)

Like I mentioned on the SOTD post, this will be the last robbed hit of 2022, to return in January. Stay tuned for my recap of the biggest hits on my weekly music chart for the past year coming soon.