Songoftheday 8/28/23 - Going out of my mind these days, like I'm walking 'round in a haze...

 

 

"Beautful Mess" - Diamond Rio

from the album Completely (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #28 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 9

 

Today's song comes from the band Diamond Rio, who scored their third #1 country music radio hit, and their second to cross over to the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100, with "One More Day" in the spring of 2001. A year later, the group returned with the lead single from their seventh studio album on Arista Nashville (and would be their last on the label), Completely. "Beautiful Mess", written by Sonny LeMaire (formerly of the country-pop group Exile), Clay Mills, and Shane Minor (who had a top-20 country hit in 1999 with "Slave To The Habit"), the song is a bright and too cute for itself love song aimed for the soccer mom crowd. The verses have lead singer Marty Roe detail how he's completely let himself go because of the love that he's in. It's made him disheveled, exhausted to the point of possibly being fired, and made him so cloudy headed that walking in traffic is a danger, but he doesn't care. It's all put through all pleasantly with the harmonies the band is known for, so it sounds better musically than it does lyrically. And casually listening to radio that may be the point, and with a possibly cocaine-inspired music video featuring mafioso in an airplane hangar, they found themselves back to the top of radio playlists...

 

 "Beautiful Mess" became Diamond Rio's third crossover top-40 hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in October of 2002, while spending two non-consecutive weeks at #1 on their Country Songs radio chart. The Completely album, released in July of that year, peaked at #23 on the Billboard 200 sales tally as well as rising to #3 on the Country Albums list (their highest ranking on each), going on to sell over a half million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2003, "Beautiful Mess" was nominated for Best Country Duo/Group Performance with Vocals, losing to the (Dixie) Chicks for "Long Time Gone". 

Diamond Rio and the Completely album both will be back to the series.

(5/10)

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Here's the band performing live at the Grand Ole Opry...

Up tomorrow: Young pianist/singer is having a boring time, perhaps.