Songoftheday 11/7/23 - Living my life in a slow hell different girl every night at the hotel, I ain't seen the sunshine in three damn days...

 

 

"Picture" - Kid Rock featuring Sheryl Crow or Allison Moorer

from the album Cocky (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 28

 

Today's song comes from Robert James Ritchie, who records under the alias Kid Rock, who after failing to have a hip-hop career in the mold of Eminem (or Vanilla Ice, for that matter), switched up to veer into the rock lane. In the spring of 2000, his ballad "Only God Knows Why" became a decent hit, reaching the top-20 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100. The album eventually sold over 11 million copies, and in the rush to come out with something to keep the momentum, Atlantic Records (paired with his original indie label Top Dog) remade tracks from his second and third albums before his fame, and added extra songs for the History Of Rock record, which ended up spending a week at #2 on the Billboard 200 sales tally and selling over two million copies. One of the new tracks, the Metallica-sampling "American Bad Ass", hit Billboard's Mainstream (#20) and Alternative (#33) Rock radio charts, and reached the top 40 in the United Kingdom (#25), Germany (#26), and Ireland (#30). It was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance, losing to Rage Against The Machine's "Guerilla Radio" (rightfully). 

For his first true new release after his breakthrough Devil Without A Cause album, Kid Rock mostly put aside the "rap" to be a "singer", with Cocky arriving in the late autumn of 2001. The lead single from the record, "Forever", did have him rapping, but in that "white trash" way that he settled in the niche. While it got played on rock radio, making both the Mainstream (#18) and Alternative (#21) charts, it didn't get any notice beyond that. That was followed by "Lonely Road Of Faith", an attempt to recreate the faux-country of "Only God Knows Why". While it climbed to #15 on the Mainstream Rock list, again pop stations gave it a pass. A switch again to the harder hip-hop hybrid of "You Never Met A Motherfucker Quite Like Me", scored a third hit on Mainstream Rock radio at #32. 

All this time, there was a cut on Cocky that would be a perfect fit at the time for mainstream stations, but was kept behind due to label issues. It was a collaboration with Sheryl Crow, who co-wrote "Picture" with him. Crow, who was in the middle of recording of her own album C'mon C'mon, Would eventually have her song "Soak Up The Sun" reach the top-20 in the summer of 2002. Her own label, A&M, certainly didn't want to have her solo music compete with this, so they refused the option to release their duet as a single. Waiting it out, Kid Rock and Atlantic decided instead to re-record the song with someone else for the CD single version. That would be alternative country singer Allison Moorer. Moorer, the sister of fellow country turned indie artist Shelby Lynne, had a really tough life, with her father and mother dying in a murder-suicide when they were home. Thankfully, the pair got through that pain and each pursued a music career, with Shelby eventually winning the Grammy for Best New Artist (infamously with her eponymous sixth studio album). Allison's debut single, "A Soft Place To Fall", was featured in the Robert Redford movie The Horse Whisperer, and popped on to Billboard's Country Songs airplay chart at #73 in 1998. The song would also appear on her debut album Alabama Song, which went to #68 on the Country Albums sales chart. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, which went to "When You Believe", recorded by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston for the Prince Of Egypt animated film. In 2000, Moorer returned with her sophomore effort The Hardest Part, which also landed two songs on the country radio chart, with "Think It Over" being her solo best showing at #57. 

 

Despite Moorer being on the physical single which provided crucial sales points for the charts, radio stations (save a chunk of the country ones) would play the  Rock/Crow version. In response, Billboard used both versions, using an "or" signifier after the "featured" tag that would become a much more common thing. 

 

As for the song itself, it of course has the quality of a Sheryl Crow composition, with its soft-country rock sound.  The lyrics paint a rough and tumble rocker pastiche that the son of a car dealer magnate would only be pretending to be. They both trade verses on how they miss each other, with the "picture" they can't bear to look at with someone else in their bed. But by the end of the song, they both are pleading to reconcile, but it don't offer whether that resolution came to pass. As much as I really hate the cultist insurrection-happy faux-everyman tool, I can't deny the song is really well written, performed, and produced, with the weary chemistry between them showing through the authentic country-rock setting. And his vocals are respectable considering he's singing with a literal Grammy magnet. Despite the overt country feel of the record at a time when the genre was all but ignored at pop radio, "Picture" was taken in wholeheartedly, giving Kid Rock his biggest hit and Crow her second-biggest. And even as Moorer was on the commercial single, it was a "studio-filmed" clip with Rock and Crow that would be shown on TV...

As for the version with Allison, who I adore, she emotes the song with a more stronger vocal, but it may be more technical than the resignation in Sheryl's take....

"Picture" became Kid Rock's first and only top ten hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in April of 2003. On the radio, the song peaked at #5 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, and #17 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") list, and spent five weeks at #2 on the older-skewing Adult top-40 format. It also climbed to #21 on the Country Songs airplay chart. Internationally, the single went to #2 on the Canadian Singles Sales list. The Cocky album released in November of 2001, didn't reach its #3 peak until February of 2003, spending two and a half years (134 weeks) on the Billboard 200 sales tally and going on to sell over five million copies.

 

Allison Moorer would go on to release eight more full-length studio albums (one with sister Shelby Lynne), her most recent set Blood coming out on the Thirty Tigers label in 2019.  She also has put out a pair of extended play (or EP) singles, with Wish For You arriving in 2022. However mainstream country radio has left her (and countless amazing traditional country performers) behind.

Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow, though, will be back to the series.

Sheryl Crow version: 8/10        Allison Moorer version: 6/10

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow performing on an awards show (conveniently altering the "cocaine" line)...

Up tomorrow: A rock band I don't miss.