Songoftheday 2/5/24 - All day starin' at the ceilin' makin' friends with shadows on my wall, all night hearing voices tellin' me that I should get some sleep...

 

 

"Unwell" - Matchbox Twenty

from the album More Than You Think You Are (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 42

 

Today's song comes from Matchbox Twenty, who had returned to the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 at the end of 2002 with "Disease", the lead single from their third album More Than You Think You Are. Their follow-up single, "Unwell", placed the band back into adult pop territory. Written by lead singer Rob Thomas, the lyrics are a self therapy session giving a rare insight into a male take on mental wellness. Rob lays his heart bare, and this time it isn't over a romance, which makes this more universal in scope. It plays like a one-on-one conversation. But at the end, it turns a bit dark when Thomas laments..

 

I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired 

I know right now you don't care 

But soon enough you're gonna think of me

and how I used to be...

...which leaves openended what will happen to him afterwards. (Been there, done that.) The production from Matt Serletic is more powerful than the usual easy-listening fare, and the banjo on a rock song works amazingly well. The music video has Rob and the band in what seems to be a fever dream...

"Unwell" made it all the way to the top five on Billboard's Hot 100 in July of 2003. On the radio, the song peaked at #6 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, spent two weeks at #1 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") list, and was a massive hit on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, topping that chart for eighteen weeks (it was the biggest hit of the year on that format). Internationally, the song made the top-40 in New Zealand (#8) and Australia (#12), and was their most recent placing on the British chart at #83. At the Grammy Awards in 2004, "Unwell was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance with Vocals, losing out to No Doubt for "Underneath It All". 

Both Matchbox Twenty and the album will be back to the series.

(9/10)

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Here's the band performing on The Tonight Show...

next up, live at the Hard Rock for MTV....

and lastly, a beautiful acoustic version...

Up tomorrow: British singer's offer gets turned down.