Each Music Monday will be formatted as followed: an overview/ my opinion on their said career, followed by the ranking of their top 5 songs. No artist is without flaws, their worst three songs will also be judged and ripped to shreds.
As a reminder, this is not going to be a series where I list no-name songs off an artist’s shitty second album that’ll you’ll hear occasionally in an urban coffee shop. We only grade hits here. I’m not looking for songs that have the best underlying message. I’m not looking for songs that represent the artist’s struggle and triumph over something shitty that happened to them. I don’t care about any of that. We are only ranking the cream of the crop, the pinnacle of an artist’s success. Before you ask, I will not be ranking The Beatles’ songs, as I do not want to tarnish my blog with overrated garbage. If you have a problem with that, or my rankings, and want to make your criticisms known, you can email all of your concerns to VinnieWontCheckThis@gmail.com. Prior versions of this series can be found here.
So with that, let’s get started.
Michelle Jacquet DeSevren Branch was born on July 2, 1983, in Sedona, Arizona. Beginning to sing at the age of three, Branch enrolled in voice lessons at Northern Arizona University when she was eight, and received her first guitar for her 14th birthday. After teaching herself chords, she composed her first song “within a week of receiving her guitar. She finished the last two years of her high school education through home schooling so that she could focus on her music career. Her parents were very supportive of her career, and financed her independent album titled Broken Bracelets. The album consisted of songs she wrote when she was 14 and 15. In December 1999 she posted the album to Rolling Stone’s website which led to her discovery and ultimately a record deal. In 2000 she moved to LA to begin working on her second album. Her breakthrough album, The Spirit Room was released in August 2001, one month after turning 18. The album put Michelle Branch on the map. It spawned a top ten masterpiece hit (All You Wanted), top 15 (Everywhere), and top 20 (Goodbye to You). Imagine writing something as powerful as Everywhere and All You Wanted at the age of 18, she’s such a talent. A year later she teamed up with guitar legend, Santana on a Grammy Award winning, top 5 song, Smooth The Game of Love. She was also nominated for a Grammy for Best New Artist. A year later we got her second album, Hotel Paper in June 2003. It had two top 20 hits (Are You Happy Now, Breathe). Are You Happy Now was nominated for Best Female Rock Song but lost to P!nk, nothing to really hang your head about, P!nk is a legend. In what will go down as a bonehead decision, after she lost that Grammy she decided she wanted to pivot into Country Music. She formed a Country Duo with her long time backup singer and were known as The Wreckers. The group’s first single, Leave the Pieces, was released in late 2005 to promote the album. The song was a moderate success, hitting number 35 on the charts and was actually nominated for a Grammy. However, the album was delayed due to Michelle getting pregnant and so all the hype for the album died down. The group’s debut album, Stand Still, Look Pretty was released in May 2006. The album did okay, but didn’t have anything else noteworthy on it. In 2007, they teamed up with Santana again and while the song didn’t chart that well, much like every Santana song, it’s a hit. The group split shortly after and we legit didn’t get a single thing from Michelle for TEN FREAKING YEARS. I guess in 2011 she was going to release something but never did, then 2013 was going to release it and then THAT never happened. It wasn’t until she married Patrick Carney of The Black Keys. He produced her third album, Hopeless Romanic, which was released in April 2017. The album was met with positive reviews but didn’t chart any songs. It didn’t matter, it’s just good that Michelle Branch was making music again. She said she was going to start recording again once all the promotion for his album was done but then she went out and got pregnant again in 2018, so we’re not getting any more Michelle Branch again for a while. Shame.
Michelle Branch remains one of the biggest “What-Ifs” in music for the millennium. I preferred her to Vanessa Carlton but I honestly think if Michelle never made the switch to country she would have had a Natasha Bedingfield like career. However, we don’t talk about what-ifs here, we talk about what-hits, and in Michelle’s pretty short career she still gave us enough to judge.
Toughest Omission: I’m Feeling You (Santana and The Wreckers)– it didn’t chart high enough for it to be included in the top 5 but you can’t deny this song goes hard. It’s a perfect summer song – you listen to this song if you want to reminisce about a guy you made out with at 2:30 in the afternoon after a morning of brunching with the girls.
5. Breathe – Shoutout grocery stores for constantly reminding me of songs like this still exist.
4. The Game of Love (with Santana): Normally I exclude collaborations like this but since Michelle does all the singing and it also appears on the deluxe edition of her album I am going to include it. Both times Santana and Branch have done a song together it has been magic, I need more of it. It’s often overlooked but I’m gonna try to make this the song of the summer for 2020.
3. Are You Happy Now – This song is power pop at its finest. You go through a range of emotions throughout this song. Are You Happy Now walked so We Are Never Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift can run.
2. Everywhere – Michelle Branch was 15 years old when she wrote this classic. That is the most unbelievable thing I’ve learned doing my research for this blog. She never got the recognition she deserved. I’m upset about it.
1. All You Wanted – This was the undisputed-number one in my mind. Whenever I need a pick-me-up I’ll throw this and Torn by Natalie Imbruglia on repeat. This song got me through some shit, I love it so much. I see a lot of people calling this a guilty pleasure song, but to me that’s not accurate – there is nothing about loving this song that you should feel guilty about. It’s tremendous.
Ranking the Branches of Government
4. Legislative
3. Executive
2. Judicial
1. Michelle
Your Turn
If you had a blog and were to rank every Michelle Branch song that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?
Vin'sane Thoughts 