Songoftheday 4/15/24 - I need a sign to let me know you're here, all of these lines are being crossed over the atmosphere...
"Calling All Angels" - Train
from the album My Private Nation (2003)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #19 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 18
Today's song comes from the rock band Train, who had scored their first top ten hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the summer of 2001 with the Grammy-winning song "Drops Of Jupiter". Two years later, the band returned with their third album My Private Nation. Even though rhythm guitarist Rob Hotchkiss played on the record and had a hand in writing half of its track, he left the band right on the release (bassist Charlie Colin was booted by that fall). The lead single from the record was "Calling All Angels", one of the songs Hotchkiss didn't co-write but Colin did with lead singer Pat Monahan, lead guitarist Jimmy Stafford, and drummer Scott Underwood. Monahan's lyrics were still in the high art period, with grand brushstrokes about societal problems that include the weird line "football teams are kissing queens and losing sight of having dreams" that were borderline dubious. The production from Brendan O'Brien is dramatic with wall-of-sound orchestral touches, much like Creed without Scott Stapp's overwrought vocals. The result is an inoffensive and vaguely uplifting mainstream rock number that translated well to radio.
"Calling All Angels" became Train's third top-40 hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in September of 2003. On the radio, the song peaked at #24 on Billboard's Mainstream Top-40 chart and #40 on the Mainstream Rock Airplay list. But its biggest success was on the older-skewing formats, topping the Adult Top-40 chart for five weeks, the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") list for three, and the nascent Adult Album Alternative (or "Triple-A") Rock station list for nine weeks. Internationally, the single reached the top-40 in Australia (#22) and New Zealand (#32). The My Private Nation album, released in June of that year, came in at #6 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2004, "Calling All Angels" was nominated for two categories, losing Best Rock Song to the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" and Best Rock Duo/Group Vocal Performance to Warren Zevon and Bruce Springsteen's "Disorder In The House".
The second single from the album, "When I Look To The Sky", had the same dramatic flair in a slower love song format. While it climbed to #9 on the Adult Top-40 radio chart, and #24 on the Adult Contemporary airplay counterpart, it stalled down at #74 on the Hot 100. That summer, Train's contribution to the soundtrack to the Spiderman 2 movie, "Ordinary", spent a half year on the Adult Top-40 chart, but missed the Hot 100 altogether. Returning to the My Private Nation album in 2005, the Hotchkiss-assisted track "Get To Me" climbed to #6 on the Adult Top-40 chart, while "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #109.
Train will be back to the series.
(7/10)
and lastly at a televised show in 2006...
Up tomorrow: This country bumpkin flexes on the famous.
Comments