Billboard Number One Country Hits 1991

I love "She's in Love with the Boy" heaps. "When it comes to brains you got the short end of the stick", then she belts the chorus. I'll take it over "The Thunder Rolls", Mark Chesnutt's take on "Brother Jukebox" (Keith Whitley's is better), and "You Know Me Better Than That". I like most of the Garth songs but "Unanswered Prayers" is a groaner, and I still hear it played on country radio. Yuck.

I love "She's in Love with the Boy" too! it was definitely my favorite of these when i was a kid. I like a lot of these songs though.

I need to get a Trisha Yearwood greatest hits.

these are the only songs on this list I can actually remember:

Diamond Rio - Meet in the Middle
Garth Brooks - The Thunder Rolls
Alan Jackson - Don't Rock the Jukebox
Trisha Yearwood - She's in Love with the Boy
Travis Tritt - Anymore

one of these days I'll poll George Strait. man's had a lot of #1s

I like all those Garth Brooks songs, particularly "The Thunder Rolls." Yearwood is bland but "She's in Love with the Boy" is perfect in its way.

I was telling a friend last month: Alan Jackson's early nineties stuff had production values (i.e gated but thin drums) I associate with the era five years earlier

(btw mid eighties country might be the most ignored and maligned period in pop music)

I stan for some stuff in that period: the Judds, Keith Whitley, for instance. George Strait was doing excellent work then too.

discount Yoakam, Rosanne Cash too.

Also Ronnie Milsap hit #1 in the mid 80s a bunch, but they're not his best work.

I stop paying attention to Milsap after "Lost in the Fifties Tonight."

yep

and even for that one I have to make allowances for how fucking kitschy it is

you knowwwwwwwwwwwww....can't survi-ive

"She Keeps The Home Fires Burning" from 1985 is good too.

There's an '85 Milsap number that xhuxk loves with a synbeat but not on comps. Is that it?

don't think so, it's a guitar number with gated drums. but I'm intrigued by that description!

Found it: "She Loves My Car"

(btw mid eighties country might be the most ignored and maligned period in pop music)

Maybe it doesn't get much of a look from non-country fans today, but I remember a lot of stuff from that era getting attention from the rock press--definitely Whitley and Yoakum and especially Steve Earle, but also Strait, Randy Travis, Clint Black, Roseanne Cash, KT Oslin, Lyle Lovett, kd lang, Rodney Crowell--but, yeah, the Alabama-type stuff is pretty maligned.

Well, that's who I meant: the John Schneider's.

Voted Trisha Yearwood.
Other that I like:
the 3 Van Shelton's, Garth, Alan Jackson, Paul Overstreet, Mark Chesnutt, Diamond Rio, Travis Tritt. The George Strait songs are okay, but not his best #1's, except "You Know Me Better Than That". Oh, and Mike Reid co-wrote "I Can't Make You Love Me" and Milsap's "Stranger In My House". Van Shelton had song good hits, and then faded fast into history.

Annoying typos in my previous post.

had to vote trisha yearwood also

Maybe it doesn't get much of a look from non-country fans today, but I remember a lot of stuff from that era getting attention from the rock press--definitely Whitley and Yoakum and especially Steve Earle, but also Strait, Randy Travis, Clint Black, Roseanne Cash, KT Oslin, Lyle Lovett, kd lang, Rodney Crowell

yeah all that stuff got lots and lots of attention largely from critics who loathed nashville and who thought country music should sound exactly like george jones or sweetheart of the rodeo, which none of those acts really did, except maybe dwight yoakam, who was sort of trying for a while there. it was a decidedly anti-pop cheering section. alabama and the oak ridge boys and all that kind of stuff was the enemy!

on the other hand, those exact acts were basically my country gateway drugs, and i might not have heard of a lot of them if the rock press weren't doing all that cheerleading, or if peter buck wasn't talking up clint black every chance he got, or if dwight yoakam records weren't being sold in indie rock stores. the judds and yoakam especially were huge for me.

some other worthy ones from that era: lacy j. dalton, charly mcclain, patty loveless.

Meet In The Middle

I'd also add Ricky Skaggs and John Anderson to the list of acts that Rock critics loved, and both of those at the time charted regularly on the Country charts. As has been discussed acts like Alabama, Oak's, Milsap, Eddie Rabbitt, Kenny Rogers didn't fare too well with Country writers. John Morthland's essential Best of Country Music book stops at 1984, and he takes parting shots at many of the latter names that were topping the charts at the time.

Brooks & Dunn - Brand New Man

oh I remember this song! didn't know what it was called.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

euler otm, trisha was never better and tho i'm fond of garth, unanswered prayers was abominable

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.