“Blessed”
Martina McBride
Written by Brett James, Hillary Lindsey, and Troy Verges
Radio & Records
#1 (2 weeks)
March 22 – March 29, 2002
Billboard
#1 (2 weeks)
March 30 – April 6, 2002
Martina McBride’s songs about family are a lot more intimate than her signature story songs.
“Blessed” isn’t one of those big belting powerhouse numbers that are most closely associated with Martina McBride. There’s no body count on this track. Instead, we get a glimpse into McBride’s warm home life, as she expresses deep gratitude for the gift of waking up in the morning in a house full of people who you love.
It’s consistent with McBride’s down to earth, heartland persona, and Carrie Underwood’s been trying to write her own version of it for years. If there were Instamom influencers back in 2002, this would’ve been their anthem.
This isn’t a mere branding exercise on McBride’s part, though. She really is thankful, and you can hear it. I like this one a lot.
“Blessed” gets a B+.
Every No. 1 Single of the 2000s
Previous: Jo Dee Messina featuring Tim McGraw, “Bring On the Rain” |
After 9/11, it seemed there were two tracks that most Nashville artists traveled. They either went on the “God, guns, and country” track or the “love my family so much it hurts” track. Martina McBride went down the latter track every bit as aggressively as Lonestar did, but unlike Lonestar whose pivot was at the insistence of the record company and led to Richie McDonald’s departure, Martina McBride’s pivot seemed sincere. Indeed, “Blessed” was from her greatest hits album which came out before 9/11. And she’d shown an inclination for this type of song in the 90s as well, starting with “My Baby Loves Me” if I’m being fair. It felt like it was the kind of music she wanted to record and got the chance to when her career hit its stride. It’s hard to argue with her instincts given that she was one of the few females in country music to persevere with a career intact into the mid-2000s.
“Blessed” was the pinnacle of Martina’s “feel good” era….and it was fine. It wasn’t my favorite version of Martina….but it was fine. I always found Martina’s passion to be more effectively conveyed through darker or more nuanced material, even for a song like “Wrong Again” where she wasn’t necessarily belting it out with brimstone and fire, but I was okay with indulging her preference to be both reverent and autobiographical at this stage of her life. Still, it’s a bit jarring to see that this was her last #1 hit. She had plenty more top-fives, but as on top of the world as she seemed in this era, it’s kind of crazy that she has the same number of #1s in the 2000s as Chris Cagle!
Martina McBride showed up at my county fair in 2017 and was was still a hot draw. She continued to lean into the “let’s all get along and love each other” theme throughout the show in a way that definitely reinforced that she was a Garth Brooks protege. Most intriguingly, she didn’t sing “I Love You”, which statistically was her biggest hit. I hated that song so I wasn’t upset about its exclusion but it was a hell of an omission from her set list, potentially suggesting she’s trying to distance herself from it and hopes it didn’t leave enough of a long-term impression for anybody to notice.
Grade: B
Some unwelcome chart trivia on this one… unless there is an R&R chart topper in that time, we won’t see another #1 from a female artist for two years. I believe it was a (dubious) record at the time, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it has since been passed in the last couple decades.
I think “I Wanna Do It All” got to #1 on R&R.
Hope you’re right. I liked that one. Didn’t “I Just Want to Be Mad” get to #1 on R & R too?
You’re right, I’m wrong. I was thinking of “I Just Wanna Be Mad”, which did indeed get to #1 on R&R. “I Wanna Do It All” actually peaked at #4 on R&R, one space *lower* than it did on BB.
I was a big fan of Martina’s first four albums, and I loved the off-kilter first single from her greatest hits set (When God-Fearin’ Women Get The Blues). But this one is probably in my bottom 10 McBride singles; there’s something overly cloying about it (yes, even for a McBride single). Down the middle C for me.
I like this one because it’s way more grounded and she isn’t belting her lungs out. My sister was a huge Martina McBride fan and she wore this cd out.
I’m just glad this got to the top and the abhorrent “Concrete Angel” or vapid “In My Daughter’s Eyes” didn’t.
I tended to dislike Martina when she gave songs the “shrieking diva” treatment. This is a nice song with a nice (and controlled vocal). This is in the B to B+ range
Very nice to finally see Martina on this 2000s feature!
2002 was the year that I really got into Martina McBride, though it wasn’t as much from her current singles, but mostly from me eventually picking up and enjoying her first four albums all throughout the year. When “Blessed” was still new on the radio in early 2002, I had recently picked up a cheap copy of her 1992 debut album, The Time Has Come, which I was really enjoying. That record’s typical early 90s new traditionalist sound was very refreshing to my ears at the time, and it made me feel nostalgic for a lot of the time I spent in Fredericksburg, VA as a little kid in 1992. In comparison, her then current single, “Blessed,” felt a bit more on the bland side for me with its contemporary soft rock style. Still, it had a warmth and likeability to it that I just couldn’t resist, and even then, I recognized the beauty of her simply being thankful for all of her blessings, especially her family. I especially always liked the “to love them so much it hurts” line. Martina’s performance always sounded very believable and sincere to me, as well, especially knowing she was an actual mother with kids. As already mentioned by others, it really helped that she didn’t feel the need to do any of her signature belting/vocal gymnastics on this track, and instead we just got a sincere, emotional vocal from her, which was perfect for the theme.
And like many of the songs on this feature so far, I actually appreciate “Blessed” a lot more today than I did then. And especially since I now know more than ever how important family is, I’ve also really come to appreciate songs like this in which the narrator simply expresses gratitude for his/her family. And I just love how positive the lyrics are, as well. It’s a breath of fresh air in the current cynical/negative climate we’ve been stuck in for a while now. I’ve also come to really appreciate the bright soft rock/adult contemporary influenced style that Martina had going around this time in the late 90s/early 2000s with songs like this one, “I Love You,” “Love’s The Only House,” and “There You Are.” In “Blessed,” I especially like the strings that pop up near the end, along with the backup vocals echoing “I have been blessed…” It just sounds so pleasing and comforting! It’s like a song you can enjoy while sitting outside on a nice breezy day with blue skies above.
Watching the video again, I’m reminded that I always enjoyed seeing it on GAC whenever it came on, and I had forgotten how gorgeous Martina looked in it all throughout. I especially love the shots of her on the swing with that lovely green dress on. I also love the beautiful fantasy looking nature scenery and location, and that her actual husband and daughters appear in the video. The Fall colored leaves on some of the trees are also very pretty to look at. It’s such a beautiful video, overall!
The first time I heard “Blessed” was on the Smackdown Rodeo on WMZQ in which it did very well during its first round in the competition. I especially remember the funny way the DJ, Paula Young, kept pronouncing the title of the song where it sounded like she was saying “Blissed” instead of “Blessed.” “Blessed” also takes me back to my sophomore year in high school when I had an English teacher, Mrs. Dorman, who I thought resembled Martina McBride a bit looks wise.
During the Summer of 2002, I was enjoying Martina’s The Way That I Am album, with some of my favorite tracks at the time being “Going To Work,” “Strangers,” “She Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,” “Ashes,” and “That Wasn’t Me.” “Goin’ To Work” especially still takes me back to the Summer of 2002, when my parents and I were going to Springfield Mall in Springfield, VA around that time and me enjoying that song on my portable CD player while we were on the 95 interstate on the way to the mall. “Strangers” on the other hand, always sounded even better at night, especially if we were driving around tall office buildings that were lit up. That song reminds me of when my step dad and I would enjoy the Tommy Lee Jones and Wesley Snipes movie, U.S. Marshals, on TV, which we also saw in the theater in 1998. I just love how quiet that song is during the verses and then gets intense with the choruses. It’s also one of my favorite vocal performances from her.
I picked up the Wild Angels album around the early Fall of 2002, and one of my favorite album cuts “A Great Disguise,” especially reminds me of the beginning of my junior year. Besides the singles I remembered, I also enjoyed “Phones Are Ringing All Over Town,” “All The Things We’ve Never Done,” “Swinging Doors,” “Born To Give Me Love To You,” and “Beyond The Blue.” Later on in 2002, I just HAD to have her Evolution album, as well, because I was thinking about how much I especially loved “Wrong Again,” but could sadly never hear it on the radio anymore.
Similar to Lee Ann Womack, it’s pretty shocking and disappointing knowing that this is the only time we’ll see Martina in this feature. Especially since she continued to do so well commercially during the decade and seemed even bigger than she was in the 90s. While I can’t say I enjoyed everything she did in the 2000s as much as I enjoy her 90s work, it’s nice to look back and see that she was able to stay relevant when so many other women from her era were sadly already pushed out the door on country radio by the middle of the decade.
I’ll also add Where I Used To Have a Heart to the list of excellent songs from The Way That I Am. Her first four albums are excellent, and there are parts of Emotion that are decent, but she kinda lost the plot for me once she got into the aughts, with each record becoming far less a complete listening experience and instead a couple of good singles rounded out by a bunch of filler. I thought ’09’s Shine was something of a return to form or, at the very least, her best album since Evolution, but I can’t say I’ve enjoyed much of anything she’s released since then.
“Where I Used To Have A Heart” has become one of my favorites off of The Way That I Am, as well. As a bonus, I thought it was pretty neat when I heard that song playing during the end credits for the 1997 Dennis Quaid and Danny Glover film, Switchback. A part of “Safe In The Arms Of Love” can also be heard during a scene earlier in the movie.
I also agree with you concerning most of her 2000s output. I still like her first four albums from the 90s the most. I mostly enjoy the Emotion album, as well, but after that, her albums were definitely not as consistent, imo. I’ll have to give Shine a listen again and also check out the covers album Leeann mentioned.
This song is kind of bland for my taste.
My favorite album of hers is Wild Angels, but this thread has gotten me listening to some of her music in the last couple of days and I’m finding that I’m liking a lot more of it than I had before. Right now, I’m really enjoying her covers album, Everlasting. The production is really good and she chose some great songs to cover that are worthy of her powerful voice. I’m especially enjoying her versions of “Bring it on Home to Me” and “In the Basement.” “In the Basement” is a great duet with Kelly Clarkson.