Songoftheday 10/31/23 - I saw Star Wars at least eight times had the Pac-Man pattern memorized, and I've seen the stuff they put inside Stretch Armstrong...
"19 Somethin'" - Mark Wills
from the album Greatest Hits (2002)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #23 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14
Today's song comes from country music singer Mark Wills, who scored his second top-40 crossover hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the beginning of 2000 with his cover of the recent R&B/pop hit from Brian McKnight "Back At One". The following year, Mark returned with his fourth album Loving Every Minute, which made the top ten on Billboard's Country Albums chart at #10 but only made it to #93 on the main Billboard 200 sales tally, unlike his last which reached the top-40. It did manage to sell over a half-million copies (about half its predecessor) but the lead single and title track "Loving Every Minute" stalled down at #18 on the Country Songs airplay chart, while only "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #107 (the soft-pop gem deserved better).
I believe that the label, Mercury, probably thought Wills' career had run its course, and assembled a Greatest Hits set that was released in the late autumn of 2002. There were two new tracks added to the nine previous hits of his (seven of which made the country top ten). One of them, "19 Something", was released as a single in the early fall. Written by Chris DuBois and David Lee, the upbeat fun song had Mark reminiscing on events in his supposed past with culture nuggets from the 1970s to the 80s. Mind you, Wills was born in 1973, so the "Bell bottoms and 8-track tapes" seems off, but negligible. It quickly moves to the 80's with MTV and the Dukes Of Hazzard, though the addition of "A space shuttle fell out of the sky and the whole world cried" (along with the previous bridge of Elvis' death) throws the mood for just a second. The production from Chris Lindsey is guitar-heavy pop, and the song ends with Wills in the reality of the current day, wishing he was back in whatever-something decade. The result was an extra-fun slice of good-natured nostaglia, and in return gave Wills his biggest hit by a mile...
"19 Somethin'" became Mark's third song to make the top-40 on Billboard's Hot 100, and it's highest rank on the list, in January of 2003. On the Country Songs airplay chart, the song spent a hefty six non-consecutive weeks at #1. The Greatest Hits collection, released in November of 2002, peaked at #140 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #16 on the Country Albums list.
The second new song on his Greatest Hits album, "When You Think Of Me", a breakup ballad, was released as a second single, and rose to #28 on the Country Songs chart.
With the success of "19 Somethin'", Mercury kept Wills on for another album, And The Crowd Goes Wild, which came out at the close of 2003. The title track, another upbeat song with a baseball-like tie-in tried to keep the momentum, but it was way more hokey this time out with Mark "rapping" the verses, and the attempt to Toby Keith himself stopped short at #29 on the Country Songs chart. After a second single, "That's A Woman", stalled at #40, Mark and Mercury parted ways.
Wills then signed initially with Clint Black's Equity label, releasing three singles that reached the 40s-50s on the Country Songs chart, ending with his most recent appearance, "Days Of Thunder" at #50. He moved over to the indie Tenacity, putting out Familiar Stranger in 2008 (which had two of those three Equity singles). However the album didn't get much notice; in fact Mark got more press for performing at John McCain's birthday party in Arizona with then-president George Bush who was then blowing off the disaster in New Orleans that was Hurricane Katrina.
Mark's most recent album, Looking For America, came out in 2013 on Gracie Records. He's released a few EP's and singles, with two extended play singles at the beginning of 2023.
(6/10)
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Up tomorrow: A felon unfortunately gets switched on.
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