Songoftheday 12/6/23 - She says "Don't stare at me" she's afraid that I might see those five extra pounds she talks about man I don't know what she's talking about...
"You Can't Hide Beautiful" - Aaron Lines
from the album Living Out Loud (2003)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #38 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 3
Today's song comes from Canadian country singer Aaron Lines, who grew up in the northern part of the province of Alberta. He released his debut album Love Changes Everything on an indie label, where it got critical and airplay success in his homeland. With that momentum Aaron went to the States and was signed by RCA Nashville, who retooled the Canadian album for American release as Living Out Loud. Lines' first single in the U.S. was "You Can't Hide Beautiful", written by Michael Dulaney and Jason Sellers (who had a couple of top-40 country hits of his own). The lyrics have Aaron giving a pep talk to his partner, who is having issues with their appearance. It's the theme Meghan Trainor would build a pop career on over a decade later. It could have gone extra cheesy, but Sellers is a good writer, and his placades come across more sweet than cloying. The production from Chris Farren is clean and engaging, and Lines' gosh darn voice doesn't annoy or stand out. But the music video, while it capitalizes on his clean-cut farm-boy looks, it casts a model as his "partner who thinks she's hideous" which is quite the joke. In the end, it's an innocuous but pretty country-soft rock hybrid...
"You Can't Hide Beautiful" reached the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in February of 2003, while peaking at #4 on their Country Songs airplay chart. The Living Out Loud album, released in January of that year, came in at #68 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #9 on the Country Albums list.
For the second single, Lines released a reworked version of his Canadian debut, "Love Changes Everything", which he and Farren co-wrote together. The uptempo lite-rock-tinged track went to #39 on the Country Songs chart. All during this time, Canadian radio had been playing multiple cuts from the album, and in 2004, when the Canadian Country Singles chart returned, the fifth single from the record, "Turn It Up (I Like The Sound Of That)", went to #7.
Aaron returned in 2005 with the lead single and title track from his prospective second album, Waiting On The Wonderful. But after it stopped short at #36 on the Country Songs chart in America, BNA (who took over from RCA Nashville scrapped the release of the set here. However, the Canadian arm of RCA had success with the record, with "Waitin" peaking at #5 and scoring two more top tens and two more top-20s from the album.
At this point Lines returned to Canada to focus on his career there. That choice paid off instantly, as the first single from his third album Moments That Matter, "Cheaper To Keep Her", topped the Canadian country chart. The title track also made the top ten on that list at #8.
Lines' most recent album, Sunday Afternoon, came out in 2010, and had five of its tracks reach the Canadian country chart. His most recent top-40 there, "These Are Those Days", topped out at #16.
(6/10)
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Up tomorrrow: Country troubadour keeps it between the guys.
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