Just as songs can grow on us over time, songs can lose their shine just as easily. These are the songs that I once enjoyed and even loved in some cases, but have lost their appeal either due to over exposure or changing tastes.
What songs did you once enjoy, but now no longer appreciate?
Here’s my list:
- Tim McGraw, “Don’t Take the Girl”
- Garth Brooks, “The Dance”
- Garth Brooks, “The River”
- Brad Paisley, “Online”
- Dolly Parton, “Think About Love” (Though I’d like this one again with updated production)
It’s funny that two of your inclusions are Garth Brooks songs….I’d actually take it further and say that very little of his catalog has aged well. I never thought Allen Reynolds’ production sounded particularly good back in the 90s, but most of it it just sounds like a demo done on the cheap now…
Five albums that have lost their shine:
the Chase
In Pieces
Fresh Horses
Sevens
Scarecrow
Haven’t played them in a lot of years. I do occasionally play a cd I made up from my favorite songs on his first 3 albums.
I like all of those Garth albums and think that most of his music holds up today. I like the way Allen Reynolds’ production blended steel guitar. I also like that I can know it’s a Garth song just by hearing those steel guitar mixed productions. I feel like it’s refreshing to hear a Garth song these days. I’m an unapologetic Garth Brooks fan though.
I chose those two particular Brooks songs because of over-saturation more than just not liking them. I do think that while I once loved “The River”, it’s seemed more Disney-esque to me for the past few years.
I came up with only three (but two of them were hard to put on here):
UNEASY RIDER (Charlie Daniels Band): Back in 1973, when this reached the Top 10 on the pop chart, this bluegrass-influenced novelty record of a longhaired type who gets stuck in a Mississippi bar with a bunch of rednecks was quite funny. But the humor has worn off a fair amount for me since then, because its maker long ago became in reality the very one-dimensional kind of redneck he went after here.
SHE’S IN LOVE WITH THE BOY (Trisha Yearwood): I don’t so much hate this record, which I believe at the time of its 1991 release was the first debut single by a female country artist to hit #1 since Connie Smith did it with “Once A Day” in late 1964. I just think it got overexposed in its time. Thankfully, it wasn’t the last hit of Trisha’s, since she showed herself to be more than a one-trick pony in the years that followed.
DON’T KNOW MUCH (Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville): It pains me a bit to put Linda on a negative-feeling list like this, but I want to make clear that, as with her acolyte Trisha, it is only because of radio over-exposure that this 1989 hit song (which, unfortunately, is likely to be her final Top 10 hit) has lost some of its luster. It also, I feel, got too many people that all Linda ever did with was sing duets with Aaron, which was far from the truth.
Leann – out of interest what did you think of his latest Man Against Machine “endeavor”?
I think it suffers from my earlier complaint about Reynolds’ production in that it just sounds terrible. It’s almost as if they wheeled in Mark Milller and said “Mark, since we can’t have Reynolds back can we at least make it sound like he produced it?”!
I thought it was decent. I liked 9 songs from it, which is more than I was expecting. I hated the lead single, but some of the other songs that I didn’t like from it had nothing to do with the production, but rather, his growling vocals. If he hadn’t done the growling thing, I would’ve liked most of those songs too.
Just for anyone who cares about things like this, but label-head Jimmy Bowen REALLY wanted to produce Garth. He pursued it hard. Bowen had done a similar thing with Allen Reynolds back when he was with Elektra and took over producing for Crystal Gayle. But Garth was determined to keep Reynolds as his producer so it never happened. I never knew what Bowen’s issue was with Reynolds but he obviously didn’t care for his producing style.
I never liked “Don’t Take The Girl” but the song of Tim’s that lost its shine for me was “It’s Your Love” (with Faith Hill) , a song that grew more cloying with each listen.
Dolly’s original version of “I Will Always Love You” was okay but subsequent re-recordings of the song (plus the dreadful Whitney Houston recording) combined to make it one of my least favorite Dolly Parton songs.
I like Vince Gill but I find that I almost always like his side projects (Notorious Cherry Bombs, Time Jumpers, New Nashville Cats) much better than I like his solo efforts. I liked “Go Rest High On That Mountain” when it initially arrived, but the song has been woefully overexposed. Still Vince is very talented and it is hard to believe it has been fifteen years since he had a top ten single (his albums still sell – his last five albums all reached #4 on the charts)
Paul,
Interesting that we’ve had the opposite experience with “Go Rest High.”
I love that Notorious Cherry Bombs album!
Can’t really point to any one artist on this topic, but I can say the heavy use of the electronic keyboard in the 80’s and 90’s has decreased the shelf life of quite a few country hits. From Ronnie Milsap to Earl Thomas Conley, the music sounds just as in style as green shag carpeting in the sunken living room just outside of a linoleum tile kitchen with harvest gold appliances.
I think many of Brad Paisley’s singles haven’t aged well at all. I guess that’s what you get whcn you build a lot of your early identity on novelty tunes. Songs like “I’m Gonna Miss Her” and “Celebrity” that were cute back in 2003 don’t sound so entertaining anymore. Even “Welcome to the Future” now sounds like it belongs in a time capsule. In some ways I feel he’s never gotten beyond that stuff, even though he’s written some fine songs.
I think it’s largely a question of production as to whether a song can weather the years or not. I would add that some of those early 2000s Toby Keith songs (Red White & Blue, American Soldier etc) all have that sort of tinny James Stroud sound that has really aged them. Anyone familiar with Keith’s work or maybe even Darryl Worley’s early work (Have You Forgotten) will know exactly what I mean…
…and speaking of James Stroud I think he produced the above mentioned “It’s Your Love” and most of the “Everywhere” album for Tim McGraw…now that album doesn’t sound good at all these days…(just crank up opener “Where The Green Grass Grows” to see what I mean).
PPS Caj – nice anecdote about Jimmy Bowen and Garth. Bowen had a very very different sound to Reynolds and would’ve taken Garth in a much different direction….so I guess it wasn’t to be!