Still Feels Good
| Still Feels Good | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Rascal Flatts | ||||
| Released | September 25, 2007 | |||
| Genre | Country, country pop | |||
| Length |
54:13 (Main CD) 18:45 (Bonus CD) | |||
| Label | Lyric Street | |||
| Producer | Dann Huff | |||
| Rascal Flatts chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Still Feels Good | ||||
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Still Feels Good is the fifth studio album released by the American country music group Rascal Flatts. It was released September 25, 2007 on Lyric Street Records. It sold 2,192,000 copies in the United States up to May 2009 and was certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA.[1]
Target Corporation stores released a bonus five-track CD along with Still Feels Good which includes four songs written by the group, as well as a remix of their 2006 single "My Wish".
The album has produced five singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. The first of these singles, "Take Me There", was co-written by Kenny Chesney, and reached Number One on the country charts in mid-2007. Following it were "Winner at a Losing Game" and "Every Day", both of which peaked at number 2 on the same chart, and "Bob That Head" which peaked at number 15. "Here", the album's fifth single, was released in September 2008 which became their second Number One hit from the album.
Track listing
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Take Me There" | Kenny Chesney, Wendell Mobley, Neil Thrasher | 4:26 |
| 2. | "Here" | Steve Robson, Jeffrey Steele | 3:55 |
| 3. | "Bob That Head" | Michael Dulaney, Gary LeVox, Thrasher | 4:02 |
| 4. | "Help Me Remember" | Ed Hill, Luke Laird, Hillary Lindsey | 4:12 |
| 5. | "Still Feels Good" | LeVox, Thrasher, Mobley | 3:55 |
| 6. | "Winner at a Losing Game" | LeVox, Jay DeMarcus, Joe Don Rooney | 4:48 |
| 7. | "No Reins" | DeMarcus, Thrasher, Mobley | 3:21 |
| 8. | "Every Day" | Alissa Moreno, Steele | 4:15 |
| 9. | "Secret Smile" | Don Mescall, Robson | 3:49 |
| 10. | "Better Now" | Gregory Becker, Darrell Brown, busbee | 3:08 |
| 11. | "She Goes All the Way" (featuring Jamie Foxx) | DeMarcus, LeVox, Rooney, Monty Powell | 4:00 |
| 12. | "How Strong Are You Now" | Mobley, Thrasher, Tony Martin | 3:51 |
| 13. | "It's Not Supposed to Go Like That" | Bobby Pinson, Jimmy Yeary | 3:59 |
| Total length: | 54:13 | ||
| Japan bonus tracks | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
| 14. | "The Way" | DeMarcus, LeVox, Rooney, Cledus T. Judd | 3:24 |
| 15. | "Revolution" | John Lennon, Paul McCartney | 3:30 |
| Target bonus disc | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
| 1. | "I Was Born To" | DeMarcus, LeVox, Rooney, Powell | 3:39 |
| 2. | "The Way" | DeMarcus, LeVox, Rooney, Cledus T. Judd | 3:24 |
| 3. | "Lonesome Road" | DeMarcus, LeVox, Rooney | 3:08 |
| 4. | "I Can Almost" | Roger Riley | 4:37 |
| 5. | "My Wish" (the hot mix) | Robson, Steele | 3:58 |
| Best Buy bonus disc | ||
|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length |
| 1. | "1 Hour Interview with Cledus T. Judd" | 60:00 |
Personnel
As listed in liner notes.[2]
- Rascal Flatts
- Jay DeMarcus – bass guitar, background vocals, piano
- Gary LeVox – lead vocals
- Joe Don Rooney – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, background vocals
- Additional musicians
- Bruce Bouton – steel guitar
- Tom Bukovac – electric guitar
- Eric Darken – percussion
- Dan Dugmore – steel guitar
- Paul Franklin – steel guitar
- Tony Harrell – keyboards
- Dann Huff – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, 12-string guitar, mandolin, banjo, bouzouki
- Charlie Judge – piano, keyboards, percussion, organ, synthesizers, synth strings, drum loops
- Chris McHugh – drums
- Gordon Mote – piano, keyboards
- Jonathan Yudkin – fiddle, mandolin, banjo
- String section on "Every Day"
- String arrangement written and conducted by David Campbell
- cellos – Larry Corbett, Suzie Katayama, Timothy Landauer
- viola – Roland Kato
- violins – Charlie Bisharat, Larry Greenfield, Alan Grunfeld, Julian Hallmark, Natalie Leggett, Alyssa Park, Vladimir Poliatidi, Michele Richards, Philip Vaiman, Josefina Vergara, John Wittenberg, Ken Yerke
Critical reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [3] |
| Billboard | favorable[4] |
| Entertainment Weekly | C[5] |
| People | [6] |
| Rolling Stone | [7] |
Critical response was mixed for the album. Giving the album three out of four stars, People magazine said "these boys know how to give today's country-pop fans what they want."[6] Rolling Stone said "These Buffett-style party boys know what makes them the biggest group alive: songs about trucks and songs about girls," and gave the album three out of five stars.[7] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic, who also gave the album a three-out-of-five rating, said "Everything on Still Feels Good sounds fine[…]but few songs stand out and grab attention".[3]
Entertainment Weekly critic Ken Tucker gave the album a C rating, saying "this is emo-country arena rock with a (slight) twang[…]the music of Still Feels Good presents not beautiful losers but manipulative wimps."[5] A positive review came from Ken Tucker of Billboard, who wrote that the band "takes some convincing new detours". His review highlighted "Winner at a Losing Game", "She Goes All the Way", "Bob That Head" and "It's Not Supposed to Go Like That" as sounding different from previous Rascal Flatts songs.[4]
Chart performance
Album
The album sold 547,000 copies in its first week of release, topping both the U.S. Country Album chart and the Billboard 200. It is their third consecutive album to hit number one in the U.S.[8] After one week at number one, it fell to number two with about 168,000 copies sold.[9] Still Feels Good sold 2,192,000 copies in the United States up to May 2009[10] was certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA.
| Chart (2007) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Canadian Albums Chart | 3 |
| Japan (Oricon) | 117 |
| UK Albums Chart[11] | 64 |
| U.S. Billboard 200[12] | 1 |
| U.S. Top Country Albums[12] | 1 |
Singles
Still Feels Good has produced five singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. The first single, "Take Me There" (which was co-written by Kenny Chesney, who had originally planned to record it himself) spent three weeks at Number One. Shortly after the album's release, the bonus track "Revolution" (a cover of The Beatles song) reached number 57 based on unsolicited airplay. Following "Take Me There" was "Winner at a Losing Game", the first single of Rascal Flatts' career to be written exclusively by the group's three members. Both it and the third single, "Every Day", reached number 2. "Bob That Head", which was the fourth single, was also the first country single of the group's career to miss the Top Ten, peaking at number 15. "Here" followed in September 2008 and it became their ninth Number One single in January 2009.
| Year | Single | Peak chart positions | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Country | US | US Pop |
CAN | ||
| 2007 | "Take Me There" | 1 | 19 | 33 | 49 |
| "Winner at a Losing Game" | 2 | 52 | — | 57 | |
| 2008 | "Every Day" | 2 | 45 | 85 | 65 |
| "Bob That Head" | 15 | 102 | — | — | |
| "Here" | 1 | 50 | — | 80 | |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | |||||
Certifications
| Region | Certification |
|---|---|
| United States (RIAA)[13] | 2× Platinum |
Legal case
In August 2008, veteran New York, New York songwriter D.L. Byron sued Rascal Flatts, their producers, and the Disney Music Group for copyright infringement, arguing that "No Reins" took from his song "Shadows of the Night", written for Pat Benatar in 1982. Byron told The New York Post that "[i]t's just too much, too strikingly similar... They'd have to have a tremendous lapse of memory not to realize what they were doing. It's my contention there's willful infringement." Lawyers for band member Joe Don Rooney have responded, "To the extent that 'No Reins' shares any similarities with the plaintiff's alleged copyrighted work, any such similarities between the two works are the result of coincidence and/or the use of common or trite ideas". New York University Law School professor and intellectual property expert Rochelle Dreyfuss has remarked that "[t]hey certainly sound alike" and compared to situation to The Chiffons' famously successful case against George Harrison.[14][15]
References
- ↑ What Sold the Most
- ↑ Still Feels Good (Media notes). Rascal Flatts. Lyric Street Records. 2007. 000038402.
- 1 2 Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Still Feels Good review". Allmusic. Retrieved 2008-03-27.
- 1 2 Tucker, Ken (6 October 2007). "Reviews". Billboard: 47.
- 1 2 Tucker, Ken (October 5, 2007). "Still Feels Good review". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2008-12-14.
- 1 2 Arnold, Chuck (2007-10-15), "Still Feels Good". People. 68 (16):49
- 1 2 Sheffield, Rob (2007-10-18), "Still Feels Good". Rolling Stone(1037):127
- ↑ Hasty, Katie (2007-10-03). "Rascal Flatts Races To No. 1 In Debut-Heavy Week". Billboard magazine. Retrieved 2007-10-03.
- ↑ Katie Hasty, "Springsteen Is Boss Of Album Chart With 'Magic'", Billboard.com, October 10, 2007.
- ↑ Trust, Gary (2009-05-01). "What Sold The Most". Billboard (magazine). Archived from the original on August 29, 2014. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
- ↑ "Official UK Albums Top 100 - 16th February 2008". Official Charts Company. 2008-02-16. Retrieved 2012-10-15.
- 1 2 "Rascal Flatts - Artist Chart History". Billboard.com. Retrieved October 23, 2007.
- ↑ "American album certifications – Rascal Flatts – Still Feels Good". Recording Industry Association of America. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Album, then click SEARCH
- ↑ Li, David K. (February 11, 2009). "NY SONGWRITER: RASCAL FLATTS STOLE MY TUNE". The New York Post. Retrieved January 17, 2010.
- ↑ Marconette, Jaime (February 20, 2009). "Did Rascal Flatts Rip Off Pat Benatar?". americansongwriter.com. Retrieved January 17, 2010. External link in
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| Preceded by Reba: Duets by Reba McEntire |
Top Country Albums number-one album October 13 - November 3, 2007 |
Succeeded by Carnival Ride by Carrie Underwood |
| Billboard 200 number-one album October 13, 2007 |
Succeeded by Magic by Bruce Springsteen |