Hailey Whitters "Living The Dream" RD (Revealing!)

[🌺CountryLineDancer]

#6 "The Days"

Total: 85

Average: 7.08

Std Dev: 4.27

Tim - 1
zaclord 🌈 - 2
recordyear - 3
someguy - 4
.indulgecountry - 5
fearlessarrow - 7
🌺CountryLineDancer - 7
nathanalbright - 8
bboat11 - 10
castleoblivion26 - 11
LBTrocks - 13
toomuchboy - 14

Kanenrá:ke

The last song to miss the top 5 is "The Days." Tim becomes the third participant to lose their #1. I was not aware of the stream promotion of this song, as recordyear pointed out, but this does have a music video (although she does have quite a few songs with videos)

CLD's Thought
I quite like the lyrics of this song, and the production is well-controlled, distinct ups and downs between the verse, chorus, and bridge. Hailey's vocal also sounds great here. Melodically, however, I am not really confident about this becoming successful as a radio single.

[nathanalbright]

It is poppy, which is probably why it resonates with me so much, admittedly (referring to Dream, Girl here).

[🌺CountryLineDancer]

#5 "Janice at the Hotel Bar"

Total: 82

Average: 6.83

Std Dev: 4.26

.indulgecountry - 2
LBTrocks - 3
Tim - 3
fearlessarrow - 4
someguy - 5
bboat11 - 5
castleoblivion26 - 6
zaclord 🌈 - 7
recordyear - 7

nathanalbright - 12
🌺CountryLineDancer - 13
toomuchboy - 15

Kanenrá:ke

The next up is "Janice at the Hotel Bar." This song was rather polarizing, with six top 5 rankings and two bottom 5 rankings. In this song, Hailey recites the list of advice given by an old woman Janice (not Chandler's ex) at a hotel bar, partially based on her real experience.

CLD's Thought
This song definitely has interesting lyrics, and I like the concept of the song, but I found the melody of the song to be quite plain and rather forgettable. This would have been one of my favs if it had stronger melody. The hook reminds me of "Make A Life, Not Living" by Brett Kissel.

[🌺CountryLineDancer]

#4 "Ten Year Town"

Total: 81

Average: 6.75 

Std Dev: 4.37(3rd Highest)

zaclord 🌈 - 1
someguy - 2
castleoblivion26 - 2
LBTrocks - 3
fearlessarrow - 3
Tim - 5
toomuchboy - 5
.indulgecountry - 7
🌺CountryLineDancer - 9

bboat11 - 11
recordyear - 11
nathanalbright - 14

Kanenrá:ke

The last song to miss the top 3 is "Ten Year Town," and zaclord 🌈 becomes the 4th participant to lose their #1. This is the opening track of the album and co-written by Brandi Clark.

CLD's Thought
This is a solid opening track. I like Hailey's vocal, which was effectively delivered by the acoustic production. After listening to the entire album full of stronger songs, however, the impression of this song got a little weakened, hence my #9 ranking.

[🌺CountryLineDancer]

#3 "How Far Can It Go?" ft. Trisha Yearwood

Total: 55

Average: 4.58

Std Dev: 3.18

someguy - 1
bboat11 - 1
recordyear - 1
castleoblivion26 - 3
🌺CountryLineDancer - 3
Tim - 4
zaclord 🌈 - 5
fearlessarrow - 6
.indulgecountry - 6
nathanalbright - 6
LBTrocks - 7
toomuchboy - 12

Kanenrá:ke

The first "single" to leave is How Far Can It Go?, a collaboration with Trisha Yearwood. This song was placed in the top half of the list of the most participants, except for toomuchboy 's. This was sent to secondary country radio market as a follow-up single to Heartland, and became top 40 hit on Music Row Breakout Chart.

CLD's Thought
This song is fantastic, and I wish they promoted this to the mainstream radio, which would have allowed Trisha to score another hit. I love the fiddle production, and the overall melody of the song is really strong. I honestly thought this would be in the top 2 for sure, but ended up missing it by 3 points.

[🌺CountryLineDancer]

#2 "Heartland"

Total: 52

Average: 4.33

Std Dev: 3.14

toomuchboy - 1
.indulgecountry - 1
🌺CountryLineDancer - 1
Tim - 2
LBTrocks - 2
nathanalbright - 2
recordyear - 5
zaclord 🌈 - 6
bboat11 - 7
someguy - 8
castleoblivion26 - 8
fearlessarrow - 9

#1 "Fillin' My Cup ft. Little Big Town"

Total: 46

Average: 3.83 

Std Dev: 2.29 (Lowest)

castleoblivion26 - 1
LBTrocks - 1
fearlessarrow - 2
bboat11 - 2
someguy - 3
.indulgecountry - 3
zaclord 🌈 - 4
🌺CountryLineDancer - 4
nathanalbright - 5
Tim - 6
toomuchboy - 7
recordyear - 8

Kanenrá:ke

This is it! recordyear correctly predicted the top 3, including #1. Fillin' My Cup beat Heartland by 6 points, despite having fewer #1 rankings. Heartland was the first "single" sent to secondary market, and became top 30 hit on Music Row Chart. Fillin' My Cup was the first promotional single from the deluxe album, and the winner of New Music RD back in early 2021. It was sent to poll on my local station, but was never a radio single. 

CLD's Thought

I think this was a perfect top 3, even though I lost my #2 earlier. Heartland was actually a grower, and it did strike me as anything special for a while. Fillin' My Cup, on the other hand, was the first Hailey's song that joined my playlist, and I became interested in checking more of her materials thanks to this song. It's such a catchy jam, and I love the energy of the song. It would have been a great radio single to introduce her to mainstream, give LBT's name is tied to it. Heartland ended up becoming my fav at the end of the day, it's such a cute song, lyrically and melodically. My fav part somehow is the last 30sec of instrumental + Hailey's humming. I just can't believe I ignored this song when I gave it the first several listens. Now that her name is a little more known with Everything She Ain't, I kinda hope that Heartland could have a shot on the mainstream radio, even though there are some good follow-up candidates on Raised album.

[🌺CountryLineDancer]

Closing Thought:
Thanks for participating in another round of my album series. This was overall a good turnout, given this song not having any mainstream radio singles. I must say the release of the deluxe album (I love 4 of 5 deluxe tracks) helped me develop interest in her, who now became one of the fav new singers. After falling in love with her album last year, I was frustrated that none of her materials had never seen any mainstream success. Thus, the success of Everything She Ain't is one of the best news of the year, and I'm hoping she would stick around the mainstream scene, given how great "Raised" album is. I'm hoping to do "Raised RD" sometimes next year as well. It's been quiet, so don't forget to leave the comments!

Final Result:
1."Fillin' My Cup ft. Little Big Town" (46)
2."Heartland" (52)
3."How Far Can It Go? ft. Trisha Yearwood (55)
4."Ten Year Town" (81)
5."Janice at the Hotel Bar" (82)
6."The Days" (85)
7. "Dream, Girl" (87)
8."The Ride ft. Jordan Davis (96) 
9."All the Cool Girls" (100)
10."Living the Dream" (107)
11."How To Break A Heart ft. Lori McKenna & Hillary Lindsey (110)
12."Glad To Be Here ft. Brent Cobb" (139)
13."Happy People" (143)
14."The Devil Always Made Me Think Twice" (152)
15."Loose Strings" (161)
16."Red Wine & Blue" (167)
17. "The Faker" (173)

Perfect Rankings:
.indulgecountry - 4
Tim - 4
castleoblivion26 - 3
nathanalbright - 3
zaclord 🌈 - 3
someguy - 3
fearlessarrow - 3
LBTrocks - 3
bboat11 - 2
🌺CountryLineDancer - 2
recordyear - 1
toomuchboy - 0

[recordyear]

Not the top 2 I wanted. The pun in Heartland is delivered in an annoying way with the pause between two stressed words in the chorus. Little Big Town is self-contained so I don't really like they collaborate with others.

I like the lines "Instead of counting up the days/I just wanna make 'em count" in The Days. Also How Far Can It Go? could be a radio hit if she collaborated with a younger female artist.

Raised is a much better album so I'm looking forward to ranking it.

Thanks for hosting 🌺CountryLineDancer

[nathanalbright]

Thanks for hosting. This album was a good discovery for me and it was good to have the opportunity to listen to and rank something I likely wouldn't have sought out on my own.

[LBTrocks]

The right song won, otherwise this Rankdown was kinda a mess in my opinion lol.

I did thoroughly enjoy this album tho. Hailey Whitters is definitely someone I’ll be watching out for going forward.