“Beautiful Mess”
Diamond Rio
Written by Sonny LeMaire, Clay Mills, and Shane Minor
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
September 27, 2002
Billboard
#1 (2 weeks)
September 28 and October 12, 2002
It’s remarkable to hear how veteran artists were able to use fresh production approaches to elevate stale material.
“Beautiful Mess” is a paint by numbers rewrite of Carolyn Dawn Johnson’s “I Don’t Want You to Go,” which had been a hit the previous year. The verses have lines that aren’t long enough for the melody, and that encourages Marty Roe and company to get very creative with their harmonies.
It’s the most purely pop hit the band ever had, and it is so fun to listen to that it overcomes the weakness of the material. They created organized chaos in the studio and it presented as a beautiful mess.
They’ve got another No. 1 hit on deck, which will be their final big hit on country radio. It’s up next.
“Beautiful Mess” gets a B+.
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It’s amazing how well Diamond Rio adapted to the shift back to a more pop sound in the early noughties without changing producers or ever using any side musicians at any point. Their professionalism (not to mention their harmonies!) make almost all their records highly entertaining. And I think it’s that ability to adapt that always made this one so compelling to me.
Completely agree and I’m glad you talked about the production. I think it sounds so cool and very different from what they usually worked with but added in that mandolin as reminder that yes this is Diamond Rio. Always enjoyed when this song came on the radio. Especially the smile behind the coffee cup.
I tried to re-listen and give it a fair shot, but it just bores more and more as each line goes on. “C-” as it would have been fine album filler but to think this was chosen and did well as a single surprises me.
I’m a fan of this song. It’s a little different from their normal sound, but still them. That’s what I loved about Diamond Rio. I always knew it was them and they always sounded like a true group rather than just a lead singer with some generic background singers. Even the sound of their drums, keyboard and mandolin was particular to them.
I always have respect for bands that do most to all of the playing themselves without helping hands. Diamond Rio is probably the best example of that in country, but Restless Heart, Exile, Zac Brown Band, even the Kentucky Headhunters should also be noted for being almost wholly DIY.
Hell, I’ll even give a thumbs-up to Emerson Drive and Old Dominion for keeping almost everything within the band.
I don’t know what it is, Leann, but you are absolutely correct about Diamond Rio’s distinctive sound! They might be some of the most talented musicians of any Nashville band in recent memory and I’m glad for any success they had, even in a different style than the 90s. I like this song, though most of what Diamond Rio recorded was quite good.
While I always liked Diamond Rio in the 90s, I inexplicably dwelled upon their singles that I didn’t care for (“Love a Little Stronger”, “Imagine That”) or songs where I thought a different arrangement would have better suited it (“Unbelievable”) when judging their career. It was a bizarre and irrational metric that I didn’t really apply to others, particularly for acts for whom I enjoyed more of their material than disliked. For whatever reason, I started appreciating them more unconditionally starting with “One More Day” because of their undeniable staying power and the distinctiveness that Marty Roe’s lead vocal brings to every track. When I saw them perform at my county fair years later in 2017, it really put into focus just how impressive their run was.
I agree with your review on this one. In the hands of an average vocalist, this would have been an average song. I could see Brad Paisley recording a countrified version of this and barely capturing my attention. And while I never made the connection with Carolyn Dawn Johnson’s “I Don’t Want You To Go”, it’s a fair one. In the abstract, Johnson’s is a better song, but Diamond Rio molds the mound of manure into a rather majestic sculpture. I was grateful for the lingering legacy acts in the early 2000s giving a sense of continuity at a time when Nashville’s output was beginning to diminish for me, and especially legacy acts like Diamond Rio putting out strong material into the new decade.
Grade: B+
You could tell they were starting to expand at the end of the decade with the poppier “Unbelievable”. The only weak link there is “I Know How the River Feels”, a bland ballad that’s the only one of their ’90s cuts that didn’t do much for me. But it’s balanced out by my favorite single of theirs, “You’re Gone”. Everything other than “River” that they did in the ’90s is B+ or better for me, with quite a lot of A+es. (Side note: I have zero memory of “It’s All in Your Head”. Maybe my station didn’t add it because of its content?)
I think the secret sauce with the “Completely” album is that they originally conceived it as a double album of two different subgenres, but abandoned that plan partway through. What other album would have both Diane Warren and Whisperin’ Bill as songwriters?
It’s a bit of a shame that radio suddenly lost interest at the time the colorful and quirky Mavericks-esque “Can’t You Tell” bombed. I have to wonder if the Chicks backlash in early ’03 made radio a bit gunshy on bands as a whole?
The dive into Christian music didn’t suit Diamond Rio very well. Most of their Christian songs are bland at best, and the nadir to me is the extremely poorly-written “God Only Cries”. I’ve tried dozens of times to dissect that song’s hook and can’t figure out what they’re even trying to say with it. Each interpretation I’ve come up with makes no sense.
I saw Diamond Rio back in March. Marty’s voice has aged enough for some of the songs to be lowered in key (“How Your Love Makes Me Feel” was transposed down about three steps!), but they still sound great overall, and Micah and Carson fit perfectly in the band.
tl;dr: Diamond Rio rules.
“You’re Gone” is a song that I always enjoyed but it wasn’t until that 2017 concert (after many years of not hearing it) that I realized just how great it is. I’ve revisited it a number of times since.
Hit or miss, I’ve always enjoyed Diamond Rio’s willingness to really mix it up with something way off-center. “It’s All in Your Head” is perhaps the oddest song to ever crack the country top-20, and I dig it. “Stuff” and “Wrinkles” were also highly enjoyable curveballs.
“You’re Gone” is one of many songs that took on greater meaning to me after my stepdad died. I should make a playlist of those songs.
“What other album would have both Diane Warren and Whisperin’ Bill as songwriters?”
Good question and I thought that Barbra Streisand’s new PARTNERS 2 album might, but it turns out that Streisand has recorded very few Diane Warren songs. Maybe the Deluxe Edition, if one is ever issued, might have a Diane Warren song.
All kidding aside, I did like this song, although I was never a big fan of Diamond Rio
The video for this got a ton of play on CMT. And while I was happy they were still having much deserved success, I didn’t love alot of their aughts output. This song is perfectly fine, though it doesn’t scale the heights of previous bests Meet Me In the Middle or Nowhere Bound. That said, it was nice to see one of nineties country’s three best bands–along with The Mavericks and The Chicks–still experiencing chart success.
I always thought of this single as their Mavericks moment. The reverb and rolling melody sounded different than anything they had released before. As for other Mavericks influenced tunes, I was unaware of “Can’t You Tell” before it was referenced in the comments.
Diamond Rio walked a thin line between being dad-country and something more significant. As has been mentioned by others, their musicianship, professionalism, and harmonies kept them on the good side of that divide. They also had such strong song-sense that served both their serious and silly fare well.
Is there a better example of the former than the song “I’m Trying” from their “One More Day” album? Its a devastating duet with Chely Wright about a relationship burdened by alcoholism.
As much as Roe’s voice was seminal to the band’s sound,my ear always picks up Gene Johnson’s mandolin trills and Jimmy Olander’s guitar work.
I love all the little lyrical details of a distracted day gone sideways in this song. The harmonies and rushed sonic sensibility captures the spirit and the mood of the song so well.
Thinking about made me realize this is one of my favourite singles of theirs.