“Unbroken”
Tim McGraw
Written by Holly Lamar and Annie Roboff
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
September 14, 2002
Tim McGraw and his co-producers really knocked it out of the park here with the sound of this record.
It’s a fantastic listen from start to finish, with clever pop flourishes intertwined with arena rock energy, with a little bit of twang to keep it all tethered to what mainstream country radio sounded like at the time.
So why isn’t it an A?
The lyrics and the singer can’t keep up with the track! The song has a clunky melody and it gets garbled in McGraw’s mouth, who can’t deliver the rapid fire verses or the anthemic, soaring chorus the way that they needed to be delivered.
It’s a shame because I don’t think McGraw ever sang over a cooler track, and he usually had a better sense of his limitations back then than he shows here.
Kudos for four straight No. 1 singles from Set This Circus Down, though! His next single, “Red Rag Top,” is one of his best, but it only went top five, his first lead single to miss the top since “Indian Outlaw.”
We’ll see Tim again with the three singles that followed from his 2002 album.
“Unbroken” gets a B.
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Kevin,
She’s My Kind of Rain did go to #1 on Radio & Records for two weeks from May 9-May 16, 2003. So we’ll see Tim again next in this feature with that song, not Real Good Man.
Oh, good to know! I’ll fix that.
I’m amazed at how long we’ve gone without an R&R-only #1 in this feature, considering how common it was in the 90s
Very bland. Sounds like just album filler. “C-“. Nothing even interesting to discuss.
I like the melody myself, and I also dig the groove. I’m just amazed at how many Tim McGraw songs in this time span have been completely memory holed.
Hmm…I can honestly say I’ve never heard this song before today. Maybe there wasn’t a video for it, as I was getting alot of my country music intake from CMT/GAC and not necessarily radio. I will say She’s My Kind of Rain off his next record may be my all-time favorite Tim McGraw song.