Songoftheday 10/2/24 - Suntan toes ticklin' the sand, cold drink chillin' in my right hand...
"When The Sun Goes Down" - Kenny Chesney and Uncle Kracker
from the album When The Sun Goes Down (2004)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #26 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10
Today's song comes from Kenny Chesney, who in the early 2000s was riding high playing off the beachcomber persona (that Jimmy Buffett actually perfected), but got a little serious with the lead single from his upcoming 2004 studio album When The Sun Goes Down, "There Goes My Life", which topped Billboard magazine's Country Airplay chart for seven weeks and crossed over to the top-40 on their all-genre Hot 100 at the close of 2003. At the same time, that fall Chesney released a Christmas Album All I Want For Christmas Is A Real Good Tan, which hit #42 on the Billboard 200 and #4 on the Country Albums list, going on to sell over a million copies. Seven of its tracks got enough airplay to place on the Country Airplay chart, with the title track climbing to #30.
For the follow-up from the new non-holiday album, though, Kenny went from Christmas back to the beach with the title track "When The Sun Comes Down". The record features stoner-rock guy and side-kick to Kid Rock, Uncle Kracker, who had scored his second top ten hit on the Hot 100 in the summer of 2003 with his cover of "Drift Away". The result is boilerplate fodder concocted to be played in the southern beach tiki bars. Kenny has gotten good as riding the laid-back groove in the production that Buddy Cannon guides him with, but Kracker's over Autotuned vocals slap it down a bit. It would've been better with Chesney doing this solo, but I guess marketing to a mainstream market was the target, and while it's inoffensive, it just seems like a different kind of country music "branding" that was becoming pervasive. The music video seems like an advertisement for some resort that never happened, with them trying real hard to make the one who isn't Kenny the "ladies man"...
"When The Sun Goes Down" continued the success from the album, spending five weeks at #1 on Billboard's Country Airplay chart, while also reaching the top-40 on the Hot 100 in May of 2004. Internationally, the single topped the restarted Canadian Country Chart for four weeks.
Both Chesney, Uncle Kracker, and the album will be back to the series.
(4/10)
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Next up at a country awards show...
and lastly, from Kenny's TV special in 2005 where it's apparent this song would've been a 6 if it was a Kenny solo...
Up tomorrow: One-man band goes on for a century.
Comments