| Still Feels Good | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Rascal Flatts |
| Cover: | Flattsfeelsgood.jpg |
| Released: | September 25, 2007 |
| Genre: | Country pop |
| Length: | 54:13 (Main CD) 18:45 (Bonus CD) |
| Label: | Lyric Street |
| Producer: | Dann Huff Rascal Flatts |
| Prev Title: | Me and My Gang |
| Prev Year: | 2006 |
| Next Title: | Greatest Hits Volume 1 |
| Next Year: | 2008 |
Still Feels Good is the fifth studio album by American country music group Rascal Flatts. It was released September 25, 2007, via Lyric Street Records. The album sold 2,192,000 copies in the United States up to May 2009 and was certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA.[1]
Target stores released a bonus five-track CD along with Still Feels Good which includes four songs written by the group as well as a remix of their 2006 single "My Wish".
The album produced five singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. The first single, "Take Me There", was co-written by Kenny Chesney and reached No. 1 on the country charts in late 2007. The second and third singles, "Winner at a Losing Game" and "Every Day", both peaked at No. 2. "Bob That Head", the album's fourth single, made the Top 20 at No. 15. The fifth and final single, "Here", also reached No. 1.
As listed in liner notes.[2]
Critical response was mixed for the album. Giving the album three out of four stars, People magazine said "these boys know how to give today's country-pop fans what they want."[3] Rolling Stone said "These Buffett-style party boys know what makes them the biggest group alive: songs about trucks and songs about girls," and gave the album three out of five stars.[4] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic, who also gave the album a three-out-of-five rating, said "Everything on Still Feels Good sounds fine[…]but few songs stand out and grab attention".[5]
Entertainment Weekly critic Ken Tucker gave the album a C rating, saying "this is emo-country arena rock with a (slight) twang[…]the music of Still Feels Good presents not beautiful losers but manipulative wimps."[6] A positive review came from Ken Tucker of Billboard, who wrote that the band "takes some convincing new detours". His review highlighted "Winner at a Losing Game", "She Goes All the Way", "Bob That Head" and "It's Not Supposed to Go Like That" as sounding different from previous Rascal Flatts songs.
The album sold 547,000 copies in its first week of release, topping both the U.S. Country Album chart and the Billboard 200. It is their third consecutive album to hit number one in the U.S.[7] After one week at number one, it fell to number two with about 168,000 copies sold.[8] Still Feels Good sold 2,192,000 copies in the United States up to May 2009[9] was certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA.
| Chart (2007) | Position | |
|---|---|---|
| US Billboard 200[10] | 40 | |
| US Top Country Albums (Billboard)[11] | 8 | |
| Chart (2008) | Position | |
| US Billboard 200[12] | 28 | |
| US Top Country Albums (Billboard)[13] | 5 | |
| Chart (2009) | Position | |
| US Top Country Albums (Billboard)[14] | 68 |
Still Feels Good produced five singles on the US Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. The first single, "Take Me There" (which was co-written by Kenny Chesney, who had originally planned to record it himself) spent three weeks at number one. Shortly after the album's release, the bonus track "Revolution" (a cover of a Beatles song) reached number 57 based on unsolicited airplay. Following "Take Me There" was "Winner at a Losing Game", the first single of Rascal Flatts' career to be written exclusively by the group's three members. Both it and the third single, "Every Day", reached number 2. "Bob That Head", the fourth single, was also the first group's first single to miss the Top 10 after peaking at number 15. "Here" followed in September 2008 and became their ninth number one hit in January 2009.
| Year | Single | Peak chart positions | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Country | US | US Pop | CAN | ||
| 2007 | "Take Me There" | 1 | 19 | 33 | 49 |
| "Winner at a Losing Game" | 2 | 52 | — | 57 | |
| 2008 | "Every Day" | 2 | 45 | 85 | 65 |
| "Bob That Head" | 15 | 102 | — | — | |
| "Here" | 1 | 50 | — | 80 | |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | |||||
In August 2008, veteran New York, New York songwriter D.L. Byron sued Rascal Flatts, their producers, and the Disney Music Group for copyright infringement, arguing that "No Reins" took from his song "Shadows of the Night", written for Pat Benatar in 1982. Byron told The New York Post that "[i]t's just too much, too strikingly similar... They'd have to have a tremendous lapse of memory not to realize what they were doing. It's my contention there's willful infringement." Lawyers for band member Joe Don Rooney have responded, "To the extent that 'No Reins' shares any similarities with the plaintiff's alleged copyrighted work, any such similarities between the two works are the result of coincidence and/or the use of common or trite ideas". New York University Law School professor and intellectual property expert Rochelle Dreyfuss has remarked that "[t]hey certainly sound alike" and compared to situation to The Chiffons' famously successful case against George Harrison.[15] [16]