Songoftheday 9/12/23 - If I had just one moment at your expense, maybe all my misery would be well spent...

 

 

"Cry" - Faith Hill

from the album Cry (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #33 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 6

 

Today's song comes from Faith Hill, who went from being a successful country music artist to a pop star by the end of the millennium, and claiming Billboard's top pop single of 2000 with the title track to her fourth studio album "Breathe". However, that came at a price; her standing amongst country music fans, who felt she was abandoning them for a bigger slice of the mainstream pie, fell dramatically. But in the meantime, Hill doubled down, recording a bombastic power-ballad for the movie Pearl Harbor, "There You'll Be", which made the Hot 100 top ten, but was stopped just short on Billboard's Country Songs radio chart in the summer of 2001.  After the attack on 9/11, a recording of Faith's performance of "The Star Spangled Banner" from the 2000 Super Bowl did manage to climb to #35 on the country chart (since they would never stoop to playing Whitney Houston's iconic take on it) and "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #118. 

When Faith returned in the summer of 2002 with the title track and lead single from her fifth release Cry, she again went hard for those boomer bucks.Written by Atlantan rock musician Angie Aparo and originally on his album The American, "Cry", the lyrics are a little odd at first, with Hill singing about how she wishes her presumed ex-lover would feel something about their breakup and what he did to her. However, going through this (quite damn recently, unfortunately), I can appreciate the request. He's lied to her, put on false pretenses as she gave her best, and would even settle for him to "pretend that you're feeling a little more pain". That line alone strikes me in the heart (oh, irony), and of course Faith sings the hell out of it. The production from Marti Frederiksen (more known for his work with rock band Aerosmith at the time) was a Clearmountain-influenced big sounding hurricane of emotion he is suited for, but at least Faith's got a voice to keep up. The whole thing climaxed with the plea...

 

I don't want pity
I just want what is mine...

 

Despite the waltz-time pacing, this is miles away from traditional country music, and while Nashville did give it play simply from name recognition, it was the older-skewing formats that latched on. The music video bring the deluge to Hill in a dark wet T-shirt contest spectacle....

"Cry" became the eighth song from Faith (including her duet with hubby Tim McGraw on "It's Your Love") to reach Billboard's Hot 100's top-40 in October of 2002. On the radio, the song spent eleven weeks at #1 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") airplay chart, and peaked at #19 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, while peaking at #12 on the Country Airplay list. Internationally, the single rose to #3 on the Canadian sales chart, and made the top-40 in Hungary (#13), New Zealand (#16), Spain (#19), Norway (#20), Romania (#20), the United Kingdom (#25), and Australia (#35). The Cry album, released in October as the "Cry" was cresting, took a week at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, as well as three topping the Country Albums list, going on to sell over two million copies (though it was her first to spend less than a year on the big chart). At the Grammy Awards in 2003, "Cry" won the trophy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, while the Cry album was up for Best Country Album, losing to the multi-artist tribute junket of Livin', Lovin', Losin': The Songs Of The Louvin Brothers. 

The second single from the album, "When The Lights Go Down", tried to rein things back albeit still in the adult-pop vein like Martina McBride's work. However, while pop stations left it alone (it "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #120), the song stopped down at #26 on Billboard's Country Songs airplay chart. Her next move was a double play, with another ballad, "You're Still Here" (a beautiful Matraca Berg/Aimee Mayo song), which got to #28 on the Country Songs list, while pop stations were served with the odd-timed pseudo-funk of "One", which rose to #7 on the Adult Contemporary chart and #38 on the Adult Top-40 list. 

Faith will make a return to more "traditional" country music and the series...

(8/10)

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 Here's the original version from the song's writer Angie Aparo from his The American album...

 

Faith performed the song on Letterman to promote the album...

Hill also sang "Cry" at the Grammys where she won for the song...

 

Lastly, here's Faith in concert...

Up tomorrow: The first idol is crowned.