"The Cheap Seats" | ||||
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Single by Alabama | ||||
from the album Cheap Seats | ||||
B-side | "This Love's on Me" | |||
Released | April 11, 1994 | |||
Genre | Country | |||
Length | 3:54 | |||
Label | RCA Nashville | |||
Songwriter(s) | ||||
Producer(s) |
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Alabama singles chronology | ||||
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"The Cheap Seats" is a song by American country music group Alabama, released on April 4, 1994, as the third and final single from their album Cheap Seats . "The Cheap Seats" was written by Marcus Hummon and Randy Sharp, and peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in mid-1994. [1] It also peaked at number 6 on the Canadian RPM Country Tracks.
The song is a reminiscence of minor league baseball in the narrator's hometown in the Midwestern United States. [2]
Dan Cooper of Allmusic called the song "way cute" in his review of the album. [3] Tom Roland of New Country magazine praised the song for "avoiding the now-stale Dixie tributes" that were present in the band's other songs. [2]
The music video was directed by Deaton-Flanigen and features the band at a baseball game. It is strongly implied that Des Moines, Iowa is the "middle-sized town" in question, as it does indeed have a AAA minor league team (Iowa Cubs) and is in fact "in the middle of the Midwest". It was filmed at historic Engel Stadium in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a staged game between the Carolina Mudcats and Chattanooga Lookouts, members of the Double-A Southern League at the time. It was also filmed in the band's hometown of Fort Payne, Alabama.
"The Cheap Seats" debuted at number 65 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks for the week of April 16, 1994. It ended their streak of 41 straight Top 10 singles on the Hot Country Songs Chart.
Chart (1994) | Peak position |
---|---|
Canada Country Tracks ( RPM ) [4] | 6 |
US Hot Country Songs ( Billboard ) [5] | 13 |
Chart (1994) | Position |
---|---|
Canada Country Tracks ( RPM ) [6] | 77 |
American country music band Alabama has released 26 studio albums, including 20 recorded for RCA Records. Alabama also charted 77 songs on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, of which 32 reached number one. The band's longest-lasting number one was "Jukebox in My Mind", which spent four weeks at that position in 1990. Several of the band's early-1980s releases also crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks charts, including "Feels So Right", "Love in the First Degree", "Take Me Down", and "The Closer You Get", all of which reached top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100.
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Cheap Seats is the fifteenth studio album by the American country music band Alabama, released in 1993 by RCA Records. It produced the singles "Reckless", "T.L.C. A.S.A.P." and the title track. Of these, "Reckless" was the band's final Number One hit on the Billboard country charts until 2011's "Old Alabama", and "The Cheap Seats" was the band's first single in fourteen years to miss Top Ten of the charts. Alabama produced the album along with Josh Leo and Larry Michael Lee, except for "Angels Among Us", which bassist Teddy Gentry produced.
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