The Closest Sheryl Crow Came to a No. 1 Hit Song Was 1994’s ‘All I Wanna Do’ But a Popular R&B Group Got in Her Way
Missouri native Sheryl Crow has won nine Grammy awards and sold over 50 million albums worldwide. Not bad for a girl from the Bootheel of Missouri (Kennett to be exact — a town of roughly 11,000 people) growing up amid some of the Midwest’s best farmland.
After earning her degree in music education from the University of Missouri in 1984, she taught music in St. Louis for two years before moving to LA to sing jingles for commercials and perform as a backup singer for names like Michael Jackson, Sting, and Rod Stewart. Then, she hit the big time in 1994.
Sheryl Crow’s ‘Tuesday Night Music Club’ album debut
After spending several years in the backup and playing clubs, reports Biography.com, the singer-songwriter embarked on her own solo career with “Tuesday Night Music Club.” It made total sense. She already knew the industry and had the connections to make an album.
Although it took nearly a year, Crow’s first solo album was a smashing success by the summer of 1994. Of the six singles she released, three made it onto the top 100 Billboard chart. Two climbed to the top five. “Strong Enough” made it to No. 5 as a quasi-breakup song.
Two other singles later in Crow’s career would get close to the top spot. “Picture,” her duet with Kid Rock, made it to No. 4 and spent 34 weeks on the chart. “If It Makes You Happy,” from her second, self-titled album (that went triple platinum), made it to No. 10.
But Crow’s greatest triumph was getting to No. 2 on the Billboard chart. A group of sharp-looking young men kept her from getting to the top slot.
‘All I Wanna Do’
The party anthem for the summer of 1994 was “All I Wanna Do” by Sheryl Crow. Not quite rock, not quite country, but definitely a song to sing along to, Crow’s debut single made it to No. 2 on the charts, where it stayed for six weeks while spending 33 weeks total in the top 100 of airplay and sales.
The only group that kept her from the top spot? Boyz II Men with their swoon song “I’ll Make Love To You.” It sat at the peak of the list for an astonishing 14 weeks, as Billboard reports. If Crow’s song was the party hit of the summer, Boyz II Men was about summer love.
Well, what can you do against a polished R&B boy band?
Sheryl Crow is still going strong
But, it was still an amazing feat for a debut album. Crow would record three more top 10 hits in her career. Her songs were about relationships, her battle with breast cancer (listen to her duet with Sting entitled “Always On Your Side”) while also doing some work on movie and TV soundtracks like Leaving Las Vegas, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The Haunting of Bly Manor.
The songstress said in 2019 that her album “Threads” would be her last. But she’s not giving up music altogether. The singer-songwriter, now in her early 60s, said she plans to create singles and extended plays while raising her two adoptive sons Wyatt and Levi.
Crow is still going strong and does the occasional tour date. She’s based in Nashville now rather than LA.
She told CBS in July 2022, “There have been moments where I’ve felt like I’ve really been not taken seriously, that I’ve been overlooked, that I’ve been an outsider into the cool club. And maybe that’s why I’m still going, you know?”
Sheryl Crow isn’t the only pop artist to miss Billboard’s No. 1 spot
Believe it or not, several iconic pop stars just missed the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Top 100 chart.
Backstreet Boys had a No. 2 hit with “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)” and then “I Want It That Way” was the No. 1 most played song for three weeks in 1999. But because their record label didn’t put the single out until well after its release, the song reached No. 6. Could it have gone to No. 1? They wanted it that way.
Missy Elliott hit the No. 2 spot twice in her career. “Work It” tied with Foreigner’s “Waiting for a Girl Like You” for spending the most weeks at No. 2 without ever hitting the top spot (10 weeks). Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” was at the top spot for those entire 10 weeks of Elliott’s song that just couldn’t work it to the top.
