Diamond Rio (2025)

One Liner: 90's Nashville country, power harmonies, supreme mullets, and that "Meet in the Middle" tune

Wikipedia Genre: Country

Home: Nashville

Saturday.

Thoughts:  Back again after being here in 2023.  This was my fear about the Two Step format, you are going to run out of the classic stuff and have to go back to the same guys over and over.

But hell yeah.  "Meet in the Middle," I remember this tune.  Solid classic country tune from 1991.  Not sure I remember hearing it back when it came out, as country was not on my radar back in the heyday of grunge, but between my wife's music tastes and the music exclusively played at the one bar in Sherman, Texas during college, I definitely know the chorus to this one.  Also, money mullets, baby.  151.4 million streams (up almost 50 million since 2023!).

They really leaned into the cinematic start on that video.  Also, the start reminded me of the characters in Road House, meeting and maybe arguing in a barn and then driving away in a jeep with the feathered blond hair.  The Uke player in the mountain man fringe jacket is also super dope.  Honestly, a really fun song with great harmonies.  On that same debut album, "Norma Jean Riley," with its chorus of "fool! fool!" also rings a bell.

The band was originally formed in 1982 as an attraction at the Opryland USA theme park in Nashville, but they were originally known as the Grizzly River Boys (after a ride at the park), and then the Tennessee River Boys.  They went through some lineup changes in the early days, but have stuck with the same core six members since 1989.  When "Meet in the Middle" blew up, it became the first time ever for a band's debut single to go to number 1 on the Billboard Hot Country charts.  Since then, they've put a bunch of singles into the charts, had three platinum albums, a Grammy, and a bunch of other awards and nominations.

They have 8 studio albums, 5 greatest hits compilations, a live disc, and two Christmas specials, but nothing new since 2015.  After listening to their top songs, the strange thing to me was that many of these songs sound really familiar.  They don't have the stream counts of that one big hit, which would lead me to think they were not big time hits, but "Beautiful Mess," from 2002's Completely, "One More Day" from 2001's One More Day (feels like a song that would have been in an old romcom), and "Love a Little Stronger" 1994's album of the same name - all of those definitely ring a bell.  That last one definitely does, I wonder if it got play at camp dances back in 1994?  14.1 million streams.

Again, top notch harmonies make the difference.  Strong tune.  I mean, don't get me wrong, this is some cheesy ass country stuff.  "You're Gone" kind of woke me up to that fact, after I'd been generally bopping along to most of these songs and thinking that this was better than I expected.  It is definitely better than I expected, but it is also mid-90's to mid-00's Nashville formula tunes.  But that being said, I'd absolutely go watch it live.

Also, they actually do have a "new" song.  "The Kick" is an instrumental freakout released in 2023 that showcases that they still have the chops to jam out.  Not many streams but still I think it shows that they sound pretty good!

#1, looks like we added new members with the fiddle and drums and #2 that almost sounds like a jam band song.  Let's goooooooo!