“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.
I had a similar take listening to this song for the first time in about 20 years the other day. The pop flourishes in the production sounded fantastic and in the first 30 seconds I was convinced I’d like this song more than I remembered. But as the track went on, something just felt off, then and now. While it was still a satisfying listen, it doesn’t come close to the best of McGraw’s discography. You come closer to putting your finger on it than I’m capable of.
I remember waiting three years after “Something Like That” for Tim McGraw to release another uptempo single. It was by no means a clunker but, as you said, it felt short of its potential. I also remember this song sneaking its way in to #1 with rather anemic “chart points” back in 2002. I can’t remember exactly what songs were blocked from the top by “The Good Stuff”, but I do recall that “Unbroken” slipped into the top after Chesney’s seven-week reign in a way not seen before since Tracy Lawrence’s “My Second Home” slipped in there in late 1993. Anyway, nothing wrong with this one but it wasn’t near as excellent as its predecessor (“The Cowboy in Me”) or its successor (“Red Ragtop”) which was fantastic and representative of McGraw’s risk-taking.
Grade: B