“If You Ever Stop Loving Me”
Montgomery Gentry
Written by Bob DiPiero, Rivers Rutherford, and Tom Shapiro
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
June 25, 2004
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
July 3, 2004
Montgomery Gentry had been successful at radio and retail for several years without scoring a number one hit, coming closest with the regressive “She Couldn’t Change Me” a few years earlier.
They finally reached the summit with the best single that they’d ever release. There’s a delicious euphoria that makes “If You Ever Stop Loving Me” soar so much higher than what they’d done before. The self-seriousness of their earlier work was often delivered with a sneer and rarely with a smile. Not here, and the production has to get a lot of the credit for that.
The record opens with a guitar rendition of the chorus hook that is lopped throughout, and it creates a loop of brightness that does the heavy lifting for the boys. They don’t actually deliver the chorus any differently than they’d done on earlier releases , but because the hook has already been established, it sounds joyous anyway.
They sound happy almost in spite of themselves, which fits the lyric perfectly. It’s a great song at its core, and an even better record. It’s a perfect example of how an act can punch above their weight and deliver a classic.
“If You Ever Stop Loving Me” gets an A.
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