“C’mon baby, let’s go listen to the night train…“
On October 16th, 2012, Jason Aldean released his fifth studio album, “Night Train.”
Fresh off the massive success of his 2010 release, “My Kinda Party,” this follow-up record also features 15 tracks, along with another 5 singles, four of which went #1 at Country radio.
Night Train debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, as well as the Top Country Albums chart, selling over 409,000 copies in its first week. The record was also the highest first sales week of a country album since Taylor Swift’s “Speak Now” in 2010. It was also the fourth biggest opening sales for an album in 2012, after Taylor’s Red album with 1,208,000 copies, Mumford and Sons’ Babel with 600,000 copies sold, and One Direction’s Take Me Home with 540,000 copies sold in the first week.
Night Train was certified platinum by the RIAA, signifying an impressive one million copies sold, just two months after it was released. It was also the tenth best-selling album in the U.S that year, all-genre.
“Take A Little Ride,” the albums first single, was released on July 16th that same year and made history on Country Digital Songs when it moved 189,000 downloads during the week ending on July 22nd, becoming the biggest opening week by a male artist, ever.
Just a week after the songs release, Jason and his label released a new version of Take A Little Ride, in which the line “a little Shiner Bock” was changed to “a couple Rocky Tops”, in reference to Coors Lite. The re-recording was done after Aldean officially signed an endorsement deal with the popular silver bullet brand.
Right after releasing it to radio, Aldean’s team asked country music stations to replace the old version with the new, releasing this statement:
Jason Aldean is in the process of signing an endorsement deal with the Coors Brewing Company. With that, he has changed the ‘Shiner Bock’ line in the song ‘Take a Little Ride’ to “a couple Rocky Tops.’ We respectfully request you exchange this version with the one you are currently playing.
The title track (and fourth single off the same record) was first debuted at the 2013 CMT Awards, back when, you know…people actually watched those award shows and made a huge deal out of ’em. Although sometimes overlooked (especially by himself, given he doesn’t always include the track in his setlist) it still remains a popular, mid-tempo single out of the superstar’s hefty catalog still to this day.
While My Kinda Party is typically considered as Jason’s best album to date, Night Train, by many, would be ranked at No. 2 as far as overall mainstream success and the stacked amount of deep-cuts present. Given the time of year it was released, this album always personally takes me back and floods my brain with bittersweet memories when the temperature starts to drop and the leaves begin to fall.
Check out some of my personal favorite tracks off the record below.