Twostepcublog

    " Loco " - David Lee Murphy from the album Tryin' To Get Home (2004) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #44    This week's "robbed hit" comes from singer/songwriter David Lee Murphy . who grew up in southern Illinois, and moved to Nashville to start a country music career in his early twenties. Initially spending a long time writing for others, Murphy would eventually be signed to MCA Records. In 1994, he landed a song on the soundtrack to the rodeo cowboy movie 8 Seconds , which made the top-40 on the Billboard 200 sales tally at #33, selling over a million copies. His song,  the mid-tempo two-step number " Just Once ", was promoted as a single, and rose to #36 on Billboard magazine's Country Songs chart. David's debut album, Out With A Bang , arrived in August of that year and included that song, but the follow-up, the slow swing of " Fish Ain't Bitin' ", faltered at #52 on the country chart.  But in those days, labels had ...

    " Slither " - Velvet Revolver from the album Contraband (2004) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #56 (three weeks)   This week's "robbed hit" comes from the rock "supergroup" Velvet Revolver, who originally came about after the implosion of Guns N' Roses in the mid 1990's. After triumphing with their top ten epic " November Rain ",  the band took a complete left turn with the unpromoted covers album The Spaghetti Incident? . After another cover for the Interview With A Vampire movie broke the relationship between singer Axl Rose and guitarist Slash , the latter finally leaving them in 1996. Slash initially formed Slash's Snakepit with Eric Dover singing lead, releasing two albums in 1995 and 2000, with the former ( It's Five O'Clock Somewhere ) going to #70 on Billboard magazine's Billboard 200 sales tally (a surprisingly low showing for such a high-profile act). A song from the set, "Beggars & Hangers On"...

    " Cold Hard Bitch " - Jet from the album Get Born (2003) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #55 (three weeks)   This week's "robbed hit" comes from the Australian rock band Jet , who took their throwback garage rock banger "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" into the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart in the spring of 2004. The second single in the U.S. from their debut album went even harder, with the profane guitar power of "Cold Hard Bitch". Written by the band's lead singer Nic Cester, drummer brother Chris, and lead guitarist Cameron Muncey and revamped from their original indie EP (extended play single) Dirty Sweet from 2002, the song glorifies a tough woman who is even more sexy because of it. The production is taken directly out of fellow countrymen AC/DC's playbook, but Nic's vocals are much more melodic and less abrasive. The music video brings a jukebox to life... While "Cold Hard Bitch" became Jet's big...

    " You Raise Me Up " - Josh Groban from the album Closer (2003) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #73    This week's "robbed hit" comes from singer and actor Josh Groban , who grew up in Los Angeles and started music and acting and a very young age. Although he had started college to study music, he left quickly after being taken under the wing of uber-producer David Foster. Josh got his first big break when he covered for an absent Andrea Bocelli at the Grammy Awards rehearsals in 1999, singing "The Prayer" with Celine Dion that got him to appear on the Rosie O'Donnell Show . With that exposure, he was discovered by TV producer David Kelley, who wrote Groban into the hit TV show Ally McBeal .  Signed to Warner Brothers Records, Josh released his eponymous debut album in 2001. A song from the record, " To Where You Are ", was also featured on Ally McBeal , and helped it top Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary chart for two weeks in ...

    " Desperately " - George Strait from the album Honkytonkville (2003) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #44   This week's "robbed hit" comes from country music legend George Strait , whose twenty-second album Honkytonkville started out on a shaky foot when its lead single, "Tell Me Something Bad About Tulsa", was a relative disappointment, becoming his first lead single from a studio album to miss the top ten on the country radio chart at #11. (It deserved better.) But he rebounded with the follow-up, " Cowboys Like Us ", which spent two weeks at #2 on Billboard magazine's Country Songs airplay chart, and made the top-40 on the all-genre Hot 100 at the close of 2003.     For the third single from the record, George came with the downtempo shuffle of "Desperately". Written by Bruce Robison and Monte Warren, the lyrics have Strait delusional on the backside of a breakup, where he pictures her still there and trying to carry on as a...

    " 8th World Wonder " - Kimberley Locke from the album One Love (2004) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #49    This week's "robbed hit" comes from Kimberley Locke , who came in third place on the second season of the singing competition television program American Idol , behind Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken.  A native of Tennessee, Locke was popular enough on the show to get signed to Curb Records (without the burden of having to deal with the Idol machine). But before that, she appeared on the RCA Label's Idol franchise releases, and her duet with Aiken on " Silver Bells " from the Great Holiday Classics set reached #16 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary radio chart in the 2003 Christmas season.  In the spring of the following year, Locke released her first album on Curb, One Love . The first single from the set is the light dance-pop of "8th World Wonder". Written by Kyle Jacobs (who mostly writes country music and eventuall...

    " Paint Me A Birmingham " - Tracy Lawrence from the album Strong (2004) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #42   This week's "robbed hit" comes from neo-traditionalist singer Tracy Lawrence , who after years of success on country radio slipped into the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the spring of 2000 with " Lessons Learned ", the lead single and title track from his sixth studio album. However, concurrently his record company, Atlantic Records, was being shuttered in Nashville with its remaining acts dumped to Warner Brothers Nashville. His next album, a self-titled set (which usually indicates a change in sound, but in this case, notsomuch), became his first to miss the top ten on Billboard 's Country Albums chart (though came close at #13), as well as first to miss the top half of the Billboard 200 sales tally at #136. Of its two singles, only one barely managed to scraped the top-40 on the Country Songs airplay chart when " Lif...

    " I Miss You " - blink-182 from the album Blink-182 (2003) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #42     Today's song comes from the pop-punk band blink-182 , who had made it into the top ten on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the beginning of 2000 with " All The Small Things " from their album Enema Of The State . The trio followed this album up with a live release, The Mark, Tom, and Travis Show , which had one new studio recording with " Man Overboard ", which was a thinly veiled recount of the troubles with alcoholism from departed drummer Raynor. The song took two weeks at #2 on the Alternative Rock chart, while "bubbling under" the pop Hot 100 at #117 in the fall of 2000. The album did well for a live set from a group with just one "big" album reaching #8 on the Billboard 200 and selling over a half million.   The following year, Hoppus, Delonge, and Barker returned with their fourth studio effort Take Off Your Pants and Ja...

    " Love's Divine " - Seal from the album Seal IV (2003) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #79 (three weeks)   This week's "robbed hit" comes from British singer/songwriter Seal , who scored his third top ten hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the beginning of 1997 with his remake of Steve Miller's " Fly Like An Eagle " from the movie Space Jam .  However, his next studio album Human Being , which saw the singer/songwriter move to Warner Brothers Records, didn't keep the momentum up. The lead single, " Human Beings ", didn't get a lot of attention, missing the American pop chart (though it made it to #32 on Billboard 's Adult Top-40 radio list), and stopping at #50 in his native UK. The album still reached the top-40 on the Billboard 200 sales chart at #22.    After a scrapped attempt at a fourth set in 2001, he finally re-emerged in 2003 with his Seal IV effort. Reuniting with producer Trevor Horn who was assisted by...

" Figured You Out " - Nickelback from the album The Long Road (2003) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #65   This week's "robbed hit" comes from the punching bag of rock and roll, Canadian band Nickelback , who were riding high in the early aughties, returning to the top ten on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the beginning of 2004 with " Someday ".  The second single from their Long Road album was the acerbic burner "Figured You Out". Written by the band with Chad Kroeger handling the lyrics, the song has him starting from describing his partner's value by her oral skills, and then goes downhill from there, from the "powder on your nose" to the "white stains on your dress". Classy . Everything is "I love the..." until the end where it devolves into "I hate the..". The production Joey Moi with the band is sufficiently crunchy, with Chad's sardonic delivery on the verses into the communal kiss-off in...

    " Perfect " - Sara Evans from the album Restless (2003) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #46 (two weeks)   This week's "robbed hit" comes from country music singer Sara Evans , whose third album on RCA Records Born To Fly had scored three big hits that crossed over to the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart with " Born To Fly ", " I Could Not Ask For More ", and " I Keep Looking ".  Sara released her fourth disc Restless in the summer of 2003 with the poignant ballad " Backseat Of A Greyhound Bus " as the lead single. Like Tim McGraw's "Red Rag Top", the song took on a dark but very real subject of an unmarried but very pregnant woman leaving home and ending up having a baby on the road (a subject that's boomeranged back in the post Roe-v-Wade aftermath). While the single spent a half of a year (26 weeks) on Billboard 's Country Songs airplay chart, it only made it as high as #16 as some ...

    " In My Life " - Juvenile featuring Mannie Fresh from the album Juve The Great (2003) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #46 (two weeks)   This week's "robbed hit" comes from rapper Terius " Juvenile " Gray, who had landed a top-40 crossover hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the late fall of 1999 with " Back That Azz Up " from his third album (and first majorly distributed) 400 Degreez . Very soon later, he released his follow-up album on Cash Money/Universal Records, Tha G-Code , which topped Billboard 's R&B Albums chart and hit #10 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a million copies (still a fourth of what 400 Degreez sold). But the main single from the project, " U Understand ", was only a modest R&B hit at #27, while stalling at #83 on the Hot 100. That was followed in 2001 with Project English , which came in at #2 on both the Billboard 200 and R&B Albums lists, but only cleared jus...

    " Megalomaniac " - Incubus from the album A Crow Left Of The Murder... (2004) Billboard Hot 100 peak: #55    This week's "robbed hit" comes from the alternative rock band Incubus , who had cracked the top ten on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart in the summer of 2001 with " Drive ".  While the band was touring behind the album but before "Drive" was released, they released an EP of live material, When Incubus Attacks Vol. 1 , which came in at #41 on the Billboard 200 . Also, Immortal re-released Fungus Amongus , which spent a week on that list at #118.  Incubus returned in the fall of 2001 with their next album Morning View , which definitely took a cue from the success of the softer "Drive". The first single from the record, " Wish You Were Here ", again was produced with Litt, again sounded like a more pensive Sugar Ray, and that clicked with rock radio, which had the song spend six weeks at #2 on Billboar...