Robbed hit of the week 11/20/23 - Saliva's "Always"...

 

 

"Always" - Saliva

from the album Back Into Your System (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #51

 

This week's "robbed hit comes from the rock back Saliva, who came together in Tennessee originally in the mid-1990's, and after putting themselves out in concert, they released their self-titled debut album in 1997 under the indie Rockinghorse label. After creating a buzz and selling pretty decently, they were picked up by Island Records, where they worked on their major label debut Every Six Seconds for years before it came out in 2001. The lead single from the record, "Your Disease", peaked at #3 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart, and #7 on their Alternative Rock counterpart, and "bubbled under" the all-genre Hot 100 at #116. The song was nominated for a Grammy Award a year later for Best Hard Rock Performance, losing to Linkin Park for "Crawling". The Every Six Seconds album went to #56 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, but sold steadily in the long run going on to sell over two million copies.

In the summer of 2002, lead singer Josey Scott was given a featured spot on a song from the soundtrack to the Spiderman movie. The result, the power-ballad "Hero", was a big success, making the top three on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 and topping both the Mainstream and Alternative rock radio charts. With that huge exposure, Saliva was poised to release their third album, and second on Island Records, that fall, Back Into Your System. The lead single, "Always" is a brooding breakup track written by Scott with producer Bob Marlette, that starts out with Josey (in the protagonist's mind) leaving his partner, though it's unclear whether its her or him that's pleading that they "can't live without" them. However the end verse (edited for MTV) gets darker, with Scott singing "I see the blood all over your hands Does it make you feel more like a man?" before a pistol is named. There's no conclusion to this - just back to the chorus, so I assume he offed her and is wallowing in his grief. It's not a fun song, but it fed on the angst of many a young man, and with MTV getting on board with the lighter version, the band found themselves with their biggest hit...

While "Always" went to #1 on Billboard's Alternative Rock chart, and spent a dozen weeks at #2 on their Mainstream Rock counterpart, the song stopped right under the halfway mark on the pop Hot 100 in February of 2003. Internationally, the single was a minor hit in the United Kingdom (#47) and Ireland (#48). The Back Into Your System album, released in November of 2002, peaked at #19 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a half million copies. 

The second single from the album, "Rest In Pieces", seems like a continuation of the bad breakup from "Always", but done in a more musically anthemic piece co-written by Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx. While it only made it to #93 on the Hot 100, and missed the Mainstream Rock top-10 at #11 (and Alternative at #17), it was the group's sole crossover to the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, topping out at #17. (I personally like this one better.) The third offering from the record, "Raise Up", was a scorching barn-burner with rapped verses. It lost any pop station momentum, though it peaked at #29 on the Mainstream Rock radio chart. 

After high-profile opening spots for Aerosmith and KISS, Saliva returned in 2004 with Survival Of The Sickest. The album went to #20 on the Billboard 200, but while the title track reached #6 on the Mainstream Rock list, top-40 pop radio had left them behind by that point. Rhythm guitarist Chris D'Abaldo left at that point, replaced by Jonathan Montoya. The band's fifth studio set, Blood Stained Love Story, would score a third consecutive top-20 placing on the Billboard 200 at #19 in 2007, but it would be their last in the top-40. The record did manage to land two top ten Mainstream Rock radio hits, with "Ladies And Gentlemen", which spent nine weeks at #2 there, just missing the pop Hot 100, "bubbling under" the list at #101.

But when Saliva's next two albums did relatively worse sales-wise, and their hits further down the rock radio charts, Scott would leave the band for a Christian rock music career, while the rest recruited new lead singer Bobby Amaru after they were dropped from Island. Signing on with the indie label Rum Bum, they released the album In It To Win It to little notice in 2013. It was reassembled the following year under the title Rise Up, which did better, becoming their most recent set to make the Billboard 200 at #158. From the set the song "Redneck Freakshow" placed at #40 for a week on the Mainstream Rock radio list in the beginning of 2014. Since then, Saliva has released three more studio albums, the most recent being Revelation, which came out in the autumn of 2023. From it, the single "High On Me" reached #21 on the Mainstream Rock radio chart. But sadly, original lead guitarist Wayne Swinny (the band's sole remaining original member) passed away before the set came out.

(6/10)

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Here's the group performing at the House Of Blues...