The 2000s File Feature
What About Now
Chart History and Recording Background of "What About Now" by Daughtry "What About Now" is a rock ballad by Daughtry, the rock band fronted by Chris Daughtry…
01 The Story
Chart History and Recording Background of "What About Now" by Daughtry
"What About Now" is a rock ballad by Daughtry, the rock band fronted by Chris Daughtry, who first came to national attention as a finalist on the fifth season of American Idol in 2006. The song was released in 2008 as a single from the band's second studio album, Leave This Town, which was released in July 2008 through RCA Records. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and "What About Now" was one of the key singles that helped establish its commercial footprint.
Chris Daughtry had formed the band bearing his surname after his American Idol appearance, assembling a lineup that included Josh Steeley and Brian Craddock on guitars, Josh Paul on bass, and Robin Diaz on drums. The group's self-titled debut album, released in 2006, had been an enormous commercial success, selling millions of copies in the United States and spawning several successful singles. This set high expectations for the follow-up material, and "What About Now" was positioned as one of the cornerstone singles designed to meet those expectations.
"What About Now" was written by Gregg Wattenberg, Ben Moody, and David Hodges. Ben Moody was formerly a member of Evanescence, while David Hodges was also an Evanescence alumnus, giving the song's creative team a notable pedigree in the arena rock and post-grunge world. The co-writing collaboration brought together experienced hands in the genre who understood how to construct a song that could function both as an intimate ballad and as a large-scale anthemic piece suitable for rock radio and arena performance.
The production of "What About Now" gave the song a layered, atmospheric quality that distinguished it from the harder-driving rock of some of Daughtry's other material. Piano features prominently in the arrangement, and the song builds gradually from a measured, restrained opening to a full-band climax that showcases Chris Daughtry's powerful vocal range. The production was handled to emphasize the emotional arc of the song, allowing the instrumentation to support and amplify the lyrical content rather than dominate it.
On the Billboard Hot 100, "What About Now" had a notable chart history with an unusual trajectory. The song made its debut on the chart dated April 26, 2008, entering at number 18. This unusually high debut reflected significant airplay and download activity ahead of the album's official release, driven by radio promotion of the single. In its second week, the song fell to number 43 before disappearing from the chart temporarily.
The song then reappeared on the Hot 100 in September 2008, reentering at number 94 on the chart dated September 6. From there it showed renewed momentum, climbing to 86 and then 75 in subsequent weeks, and continued to build, ultimately completing a 20-week total chart run that reflected the sustained promotional campaign behind the song. The chart trajectory illustrated both the song's initial radio impact and its durability as a piece that continued to find new listeners through the summer and fall of 2008.
The song performed strongly on rock-specific charts, where Daughtry was a dominant presence throughout their second album campaign. On the Adult Pop Songs chart and the Mainstream Rock charts, the song registered prominently, confirming the band's strength with the rock radio audience that was their primary commercial base. The song's emotional content made it particularly effective on Hot Adult Contemporary formats as well, giving it broader demographic reach than a harder rock single might have achieved.
The music video for "What About Now" was a significant component of the promotional campaign and circulated widely on video platforms, eventually accumulating tens of millions of views. Leave This Town as a whole performed extremely well, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 in the week of July 19, 2008, and "What About Now" was a central part of that album's commercial identity. The song's 20-week Hot 100 run was among the longer chart tenures for rock singles of that period and underscored the band's consistent commercial reliability during a period when rock radio was facing increased competition from pop and hip-hop formats.
02 Song Meaning
Themes and Meaning of "What About Now" by Daughtry
"What About Now" is a plea for commitment and action directed at a partner who has been hesitant or evasive about the future of a relationship. The central emotional thrust of the song is an urgent questioning of why the present moment is not being seized, why the two people in the relationship are waiting when the circumstances seem right for a decision to be made. The title phrase functions as both a question and an implicit argument, suggesting that all the preconditions for moving forward have been met and that the moment for hesitation has passed.
The song's emotional tone is one of restrained urgency, capturing the particular frustration of someone who cares deeply and wants resolution but is not willing to simply walk away. The tenderness in the delivery ensures that the song does not read as confrontational, even though its lyrical content is pressing for an answer. This balance between emotional intensity and restraint gives the song its distinctive character and makes it accessible to a wide range of listeners navigating similar situations.
The thematic content connects to a broader pattern in arena rock and post-grunge balladry of using romantic relationships as a vehicle for exploring larger questions about commitment, courage, and the willingness to take emotional risks. In this tradition, love songs are often as much about the challenge of choosing vulnerability as they are about the content of the relationship itself, and "What About Now" participates in this tradition by centering the moment of decision rather than describing the relationship in detail.
For Daughtry's audience, the song's emotional directness was a significant part of its appeal. Chris Daughtry's vocal delivery carried the genuine emotional weight of the lyrical content, and his background as an American Idol finalist had established him as a performer capable of communicating sincerity rather than performance. This authenticity of delivery was central to how the song was received.
The song also functions as a statement about seizing the present moment more broadly, connecting romantic decision-making to a larger philosophy of engagement with life. The sense that time is passing and that the moment for action is now resonates beyond the romantic context and speaks to a more general human experience of opportunity and hesitation. This universality contributed to the song's ability to connect with rock radio audiences who might not have been seeking explicitly romantic content.
Critically, "What About Now" was seen as evidence of Daughtry's ability to navigate emotional complexity within the constraints of a commercial rock format, producing a song that was simultaneously radio-friendly and emotionally substantive. The collaboration with Ben Moody and David Hodges, both veterans of emotionally intense rock music, gave the song a compositional maturity that distinguished it from more formulaic arena rock and contributed to its lasting appeal among listeners of the period.
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