Brandy Clark - "Your Life Is A Record" rankdown (finished)

[Darkest Hour]

Brandy Clark admires Randy Newman but I don't think their voices go well together in Bigger Boat.
Like Mine has signature Brandi Carlile production and it's not really good on her.
Bad Car is not that interesting.
The horns in Who Broke Whose Heart are cute but there are just better songs from this album.

[🌺CountryLineDancer]

Oh I really like Like Mine. 
The verse is kinda alright, but the chorus sounds delicately beautiful + Hailey Whitters did a nice writing job here.

[someguy]

#10 - Same Devil



Writers: Brandy Clark, Hailey Whitters, Marla Cannon-Goodman

Total Points: 113

taylor is terrified - 1
LBTrocks - 1
castleoblivion26 - 2
Kanenrá:ke - 5
ccarter1023 - 5
Troublemaker - 8
.indulgecountry - 8
d3vin44 - 9
SHOOTER - 10
tim - 11
Darkest Hour - 12
🌺CountryLineDancer - 13
someguy - 14
bboat11 - 14

We kick off top 10 with the second deluxe track "Same Devil", which managed to finish ahead of "Who Broke Whose Heart" (and in doing so, make the top 10) by one point. The song proved to be one of the most polarizing here, garnering two last place ranks (myself and bboat11), but also two #1 ranks (taylor is terrified and LBTrocks). This song, like "Like Mine", was co-written by the team of Brandy, Hailey Whitters and Marla Cannon-Goodman, and features prominent background vocals from Brandi Carlile.

[someguy]

#9 - Apologies





Writers: Brandy Clark, Scott Stepakoff, Forest Glen Whitehead

Total Points: 111

.indulgecountry - 4
Darkest Hour - 4
bboat11 - 4
Troublemaker - 5
d3vin44 - 7
ccarter1023 - 7
🌺CountryLineDancer - 8
castleoblivion26 - 8
someguy - 9
SHOOTER - 9
tim - 10
taylor is terrified - 11
LBTrocks - 11
Kanenrá:ke - 14

Out at #9 is "Apologies", which finished two points ahead of "Same Devil". While no one loses a #1 here, we do say goodbye to four top 5s, including a trip of #4s. Kanenrá:ke also loses his last place.

[.indulgecountry]

@ how many people have already lost #1 ranks in the first handful of reveals. This RD is wild, lmao.

[tim]

"Same Devil" is a superb song but it just isn't one I feel compelled to revisit. Understanding that it is one of the deluxe tracks, I feel like the song itself is a bit of an outlier as it just doesn't seem to fit within the theme of the rest of the album.

The only thing working against "Apologies" is that everything else ahead of it is just a bit stronger and therefore gets lost in the shuffle a bit.

[bboat11]

This rankdown is a damn mess! Lmao. It's been awhile since I've seen a random album be this unpredictable.

[SHOOTER]

I can’t recall the last time I had so many perfect rankings!

[LBTrocks]

OUCH omg. This was going FANTASTIC until you all screwed "Same Devil" over! That song is gorgeous!! Add me to the list of people who are now going wtf @ these reveals lol.

[someguy]

#8 - Love Is A Fire





Writers: Brandy Clark, Jesse Jo Dillon, Shane McAnally

Total Points: 105

SHOOTER - 2
LBTrocks - 3
Kanenrá:ke - 3
Troublemaker - 4
d3vin44 - 6
ccarter1023 - 6
taylor is terrified - 6
Darkest Hour - 7
tim - 9
🌺CountryLineDancer - 10
bboat11 - 11
.indulgecountry - 12
castleoblivion26 - 13
someguy - 13

"Love Is A Fire" is the top song of our bottom half, as it leaves us at #8. It is definitely a different sound for Brandy. It was co-written with her good friends and frequent collaborators Jesse Jo Dillon and Shane McAnally. No one loses a #1 or a #14, but it proved to be somewhat polarizing all the same. Four top 5s are lost, including SHOOTER's #2. Additionally, four below-10 ranks are also loss, including mine and castleoblivion26's #13.

[someguy]

#7 - Can We Be Strangers





Writers: Brandy Clark, Clint Daniels, Jesse Jo Dillon

Total Points: 102

bboat11 - 2
someguy - 3
.indulgecountry - 5
d3vin44 - 5
castleoblivion26 - 6
tim - 6
SHOOTER - 7
Troublemaker - 7
LBTrocks - 8
ccarter1023 - 9
taylor is terrified - 9
Darkest Hour - 11
🌺CountryLineDancer - 11
Kanenrá:ke - 13

We kick off our top half with "Can We Be Strangers", which leaves us at #7. I really like the idea of this song, where her and her ex can't be friends, don't want to still be together, and don't want to hate each other either. They just want to be totally indifferent to each other. I thought it was an interesting take on a breakup song. bboat11 loses a #2, while Kanenrá:ke loses a bottom 2.

[someguy]

#6 - Pawn Shop





Writers: Brandy Clark, Troy Verges

Total Points: 97

.indulgecountry - 1
Kanenrá:ke - 1
Darkest Hour - 2
castleoblivion26 - 4
SHOOTER - 4
LBTrocks - 6
🌺CountryLineDancer - 6
tim - 7
someguy - 8
bboat11 - 10
d3vin44 - 11
ccarter1023 - 11
taylor is terrified - 12
Troublemaker - 14

Just outside of our top 5 is "Pawn Shop", which leaves us at #6. Unfortunately, with this loss, .indulgecountry and Kanenrá:ke become the latest person to lose their #1. On the other side, Troublemaker finally loses his #14 with this exit. That means there is just one song with a last place rank left to leave us.

[someguy]

That takes us to the top 5! Here it is:

I'll Be The Sad Song
Long Walk
Remember Me Beautiful
The Past Is The Past
Who You Thought I Was

someguy Darkest Hour ccarter1023 tim castleoblivion26 Kanenrá:ke 🌺CountryLineDancer Troublemaker d3vin44 taylor is terrified .indulgecountry bboat11 LBTrocks SHOOTER

[d3vin44]

Solid top 5! Really happy to see Long Walk doing so well. :)

[tim]

It's hard to argue with any of the reveals today because that top 5 looks great! Of which, I still have my top 4 remaining including my #1. I'm also glad to see that "Remember Me Beautiful" make it in as that was the only song I myself couldn't squeeze into my top 5 but just couldn't find the room to do so.

[Darkest Hour]

10. The atmosphere is too thin and not dark enough to my liking.
9. The chorus is really catchy. This sounds like a hit if she had any radio momentum.
8. The song is much more interesting than the title. It probably comes down whether you like waltz beats.
7. Weak melody imo.
6. Love the stories and so sad that this missed top 5.

At least my #1 is still in.

[LBTrocks]

Noooo not “Love Is A Fire” missing the top 10 too 😢

[castleoblivion26]

I have my 1, 5, 7, 10, 14 left. I'm wondering what I didn't hear in the song I put at #14. I didn't hate anything though. I do wish I had ranked my #10 higher

[🌺CountryLineDancer]

My #1 2 4 5 7 are alive.
Only "Like Mine" was my sad loss.
Funny how I'm doing relatively good in this RD, as I'm usually one of the lease closest RD participants.

[d3vin44]

1, 3, 4, 8, 10 is what I have left.

[SHOOTER]

1-3-5-8-12

I won’t be mad at anything that wins tbh

[someguy]

#5 - Remember Me Beautiful



Writers: Brandy Clark, Hillary Linsey, Liz Rose, Lori McKenna

Total Points: 91

Darkest Hour - 1
taylor is terrified - 3
someguy - 4
ccarter1023 - 4
Kanenrá:ke - 4
Troublemaker - 6
castleoblivion26 - 7
LBTrocks - 7
🌺CountryLineDancer - 7
tim - 8
d3vin44 - 8
bboat11 - 9
.indulgecountry - 11
SHOOTER - 12

We kick off the top 5 with "Remember Me Beautiful", by far the highest ranked of the three songs that only appear on the deluxe edition of the album. With this loss, Darkest Hour becomes the next person to lose a #1. Co-written with the Love Junkies, the song to me sounds like it would fit on either of her first two albums just as much as this one. This is one that I wish had appeared on a regular album of Brandy's, instead of just being a random bonus track.

[someguy]

#4 - The Past Is The Past







Writers: Brandy Clark, Barry Dean, Luke Laird

Total Points: 87

🌺CountryLineDancer - 2
tim - 3
Darkest Hour - 3
.indulgecountry - 3
taylor is terrified - 4
castleoblivion26 - 5
LBTrocks - 5
SHOOTER - 5
bboat11 - 7
someguy - 10
ccarter1023 - 10
Kanenrá:ke - 10
Troublemaker - 10
d3vin44 - 10

At #4, we say goodbye to "The Past Is The Past". The original version of the song was the closer on the original version of the album, and the new version of the song with Lindsay Buckingham is included on the deluxe edition. They almost sound like completely different songs in their different forms. Brandy has said that there was some debate if this should have been the first song on the album or the last. I think it would have been interesting if one version closed the album, and the other one opened it. This did better here than I had thought it might. While it did not receive any #1 ranks, it did garner 8 top five placements, including 🌺CountryLineDancer's #2. I thought it was interesting that everyone either had it in their top 5, or put it at #10, outside of bboat11.

[someguy]

#3 - Long Walk





Writers: Brandy Clark, Jesse Frasure, Jessie Jo Dillon

Total Points: 75

🌺CountryLineDancer - 1
Troublemaker - 1
.indulgecountry - 2
Kanenrá:ke - 2
ccarter1023 - 3
SHOOTER - 3
d3vin44 - 4
tim - 5
Darkest Hour - 5
someguy - 6
taylor is terrified - 8
LBTrocks - 9
bboat11 - 12
castleoblivion26 - 14

Coming in third is "Long Walk", one of the (only) light moments on the album. It was a strong contender the whole time, and came very close to being #2 a few times. While nothing from this album was never going to be a radio smash, a think this would have been an infinitely better second single than "Bigger Boat" (though I totally get that it wouldn't have done anything anyway, and Brandy really wanted to make a video for "Bigger Boat"). With this loss, castleoblivion26 finally loses his #14, while both 🌺CountryLineDancer and Troublemaker lose their #1s. Looking back, I probably should have found a way to put this in my top 5.

[Darkest Hour]

This rankdown starts out great but turns to dumpster fire quickly.
6 vs 8. Don't really care who wins.

[Darkest Hour]

May 22, 2021 7:07:58 GMT -5 someguy said:

#5 - Remember Me Beautiful
bboat11 - 9
.indulgecountry - 11
SHOOTER - 12

Definitely won't remember y'all beautiful! Her vocal at 3:38 > your fav country female's vocal performance. I thought Pulse likes the ballads too.

[someguy]

#2 - I'll Be The Sad Song





Writers: Brandy Clark, Jessie Jo Dillon, Chase McGill

Total Points: 72

tim - 1
ccarter1023 - 2
Troublemaker - 2
LBTrocks - 2
bboat11 - 3
d3vin44 - 3
someguy - 5
taylor is terrified - 5
🌺CountryLineDancer - 5
Darkest Hour - 6
SHOOTER - 8
.indulgecountry - 9
castleoblivion26 - 10
Kanenrá:ke - 11

Our #2 song is "I'll Be The Sad Song", the album opener and inspiration for the title of the record. It performed very well during the entire submission process, but never had a chance at catching "Who You Thought I Was". It was always in the top 5, but didn't have #2 completely wrapped up until the end. tim loses his #1 with this reveal.

[someguy]

#1 - Who You Thought I Was





Writers: Brandy Clark, Jessie Jo Dillon, Jonathan Singleton

Total Points: 49

castleoblivion26 - 1
ccarter1023 - 1
d3vin44 - 1
SHOOTER - 1
someguy - 2
tim - 2
taylor is terrified - 2
Troublemaker - 3
LBTrocks - 4
🌺CountryLineDancer - 4
bboat11 - 6
.indulgecountry - 6
Darkest Hour - 8
Kanenrá:ke - 8

Nothing else stood a chance here. "Who You Thought I Was" ran away with this from the beginning. While I do think that single bias is a thing, I don't think it came into play much here, since Brandy doesn't exactly get played on the radio, sadly. IMO, this was one of the best country singles released last year, and should have been absolute smash hit. Four people lose their #1 here, and all but two people had it in their top half.

[someguy]

Thanks to everyone who participated! As I said in the opening post, this is one of my favourite albums of the last few years. As Ms. Yearwood sings, "The Song Remembers When", and this album will always have a lot of meaning to me, as I listened to it over and over at the beginning of the pandemic. I was also a big fan of Brandy's interview series "You Can't Come Over (But You Can Come In)" during that time as well. Hopefully everyone enjoyed the album!

someguy Darkest Hour ccarter1023 tim castleoblivion26 Kanenrá:ke 🌺CountryLineDancer Troublemaker d3vin44 taylor is terrified .indulgecountry bboat11 LBTrocks SHOOTER

[Darkest Hour]

Thanks someguy for hosting this even though the top 5 went out in reverse order of my ranking. One of silver linings is that her name will be continually tossed around because of her sexuality, but her music is quite good as well.