Robbed hit of the week 9/25/23 - Phil Vassar's "American Child"...

 

 

"American Child" - Phil Vassar

from the album American Child (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #48 (two weeks)

 

This week's 'robbed hit' comes from country music singer/songwriter Phil Vassar, whose self-titled debut album had spun off five top-20 hits on Billboard magazine's Country Songs airplay chart, two of which cracked the top-40 on the 'pop' Hot 100 with "Just Another Day In Paradise" and "That's When I Love You".  In the spring of 2002, Phil released the title track to his sophomore effort American Child as the lead single. Written by Vassar with Craig Wiseman, with Phil co-producing with Byron Gallimore, the track attempts to jump the patriotic train that was running at full steam after 9/11. The first and second version put the context in his own rags to riches story, with the third shifting it to the birth of his daughter. He then tosses a couple lines about his father who would be 80 but died in World War II (I don't know if this is fact or fiction). That's it. The production is like a truck commerical set to a waltz beat. It's sparse but the product does what its set out to be. However, even with the hyper-go-USA times maybe its lack of being political kept notice away; while country radio warmed to it, it didn't quite reach the heights of his debut...

 

 While "American Child" rose to #5 on Billboard's Country Songs airplay chart, it stopped just over the halfway mark on the Hot 100 in October of 2002. The American Child album, released in August of that year, was his first to crack the Billboard 200 sales tally, also barely missing the top-40 at #44, while peaking at #4 on the Country Albums list.

The second single from the set, the preachy "This Is God", stopped at #17 on the Country Songs chart, while "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #109. That was followed by "Ultimate Love", which is the most pleasant of the three, but stopped right under the Country Songs top-40 at #41. 

(4/10)

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Here's a short clip of Phil in concert in Delaware...