"What Hurts The Most" - Rascal Flatts Song Analysis

Firefly sent me an email asking why I didn't analyze any country music. For the life of me, I thought I remembered analyzing "What Hurts The Most" by Rascal Flatts, but couldn't find it after a search of the blog. Then it hit me - I had done an analysis of the song in one of my books - How To Make Your Band Sound Great. So here it is, only a little more fleshed out that what's in the book.

"What Hurts The Most" is a song written by Jeffrey Steele and Steve Robson that was cut three times before the Rascal Flatts version made it to #1 on the Billboard country charts and #6 on their Hot 100 chart. The song came from the band's 2006 Me And My Gang album, and was nominated for two Grammys. Let's take a look at it.

The Song - "What Hurts The Most" follows the traditional hit single form almost perfectly. It looks something like this:

Intro, Verse, Chorus, Interlude, Verse, Chorus, Solo/Bridge, Chorus, Outro.

The song has a great melody and a very catchy chorus that's well delivered performance-wise.

The Arrangement - The song is a glowing example of the "new" country music in that it closely resembles layered pop music except with the addition of traditional country instruments like fiddle, steel  guitar and banjo. As you would expect from a big budget act, this song has absolutely state-of-the-art arranging, which is needed for a song with a simple form.

What's especially cool is all the sections of the song that repeat but are slightly different the second or third time through. A good example is the line in the last bar of the first half of the intro, which is first played on acoustic guitar, then doubled with the fiddle the second time through. On the third pass there's a steel fill.

Another great example is the last chorus where the song stops and the melody changes, then the background vocals enter right afterwards.

Also listen to how the 2nd verse develops with the entrance of fiddle and electric guitar. Then in the 2nd chorus the steel and banjo enter.

Let's look at the elements:

   * The Foundation - Bass and drums

   * The Pad - Steel and big electric guitar chords during the chorus

   * The Rhythm - The acoustic guitar in the verses and the banjo and shaker in the choruses

   * The Lead - Fiddle in the intro and interlude, lead vocal in the verses and choruses, and lead guitar in the solo

   *  Fills - There's a steel guitar answer in the interlude and background vocal answers in the last chorus.

The Sound - The sound of this record is great. It's very clean and not over-compressed. There's very little ambience that sticks out anywhere so everything is very in your face. The one thing that is a bit unusual is that the bass is mixed very loud and takes up a lot of space in the mix.

The Performance - Everything on this recording is so well executed, but I love Gary LeVox's lead vocal, especially on the last chorus where the melody changes over the stop time. Gives me chills! The other thing that stood out is the drum groove, especially the snare, which is very behind the beat. It's played almost like a blues record.

As always, send me your requests for songs to analyze.

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Are CD's Back?

This week was finally a good one for CD sales, with 5 releases with sales of more than 100,000. The album sales chart was topped by the latest Rascal Flatts album Lyric Street at 355,000.

What's more, 20 out of the top 50 showed positive gains from the week before and 12 were new entries.

Could the rise of the current release digital single have anything to do with that? Is an album priced at $9.99 suddenly a better bargain than a single at $1.29. Maybe it's just a coincidence and an odd week, but it's something worth looking at the next few weeks to see if it signals a trend.

Either way, it was a great sales week. Not quite like the days of old when with sales in the millions and near millions, but better than it's been in a long, long time.

Rascal Flatts and JC Penny

In an example of what might be the future of the music business, country hit makers Rascal Flatts have entered into a 2 year sponsorship agreement with JC Penny. As part of the deal, the band will even create a custom Penny-inspired track for their next CD.

The track is called "American Living" and seems to gratuitously promote the American Living brand sold by JC Penny. The song will be on a special album to be sold exclusively at Penny stores, and an American Living branded tour that begins in June.

This deal seems a bit over the top in terms of what an artist will now stoop to for a sponsorship deal. Back in the 60's and 70's, such a deal would be unthinkable as a blow to artistic integrity, but it just seems like business as usual in the new music industry.

It's understandable that artists are looking for additional revenue streams given the new music economics where CD sales are so small, but such a blatant sponsorship might provoke a backlash that the band is not prepared for.