The 2000s File Feature
That's The Way
Jo Dee Messina: "That's the Way" (2000) Jo Dee Messina was among the leading commercial country music artists of the late 1990s and early 2000s, distinguishe…
01 The Story
Jo Dee Messina: "That's the Way" (2000)
Jo Dee Messina was among the leading commercial country music artists of the late 1990s and early 2000s, distinguished by a powerful voice and a willingness to record material that pushed at the edges of the mainstream Nashville sound. Born in Holliston, Massachusetts, Messina moved to Nashville in her early twenties and signed with Curb Records after a period of development that included extensive work with producer Tim McGraw collaborator Byron Gallimore and producer Tim McGraw himself, who became an important figure in shaping her commercial sound.
Career Context and Album Origins
"That's the Way" appeared on Messina's third studio album, Burn, which was released by Curb Records in 2000. The album followed two commercially successful records, the self-titled debut from 1996 and I'm Alright from 1998, which had produced a series of substantial country chart successes including "Bye Bye," "I'm Alright," and "Stand Beside Me." By the time Burn was recorded, Messina had established herself as a consistent presence on country radio and at the upper end of the country album sales market, giving her a commercial platform from which to introduce new material.
The production of Burn was handled by Byron Gallimore and Tim McGraw, the team that had been responsible for Messina's earlier successes. This production partnership was notable in Nashville for its combination of commercial instincts and willingness to incorporate sounds and textures from outside the standard country production palette of the era. The result was a country-pop sound that was polished enough for mainstream radio while retaining enough of the emotional directness associated with traditional country music to satisfy the genre's core audience.
Chart Performance on the Billboard Hot 100
"That's the Way" entered the Billboard Hot 100 on June 24, 2000, at position 78, indicating an initial commercial response driven primarily by country radio play and retail sales in markets with strong country music audiences. The single climbed steadily over the following weeks, reaching 67, 63, 54, and 50 in successive chart periods before achieving its peak position of number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 during the week of August 26, 2000. The single spent a total of 20 weeks on the Hot 100, a run of remarkable longevity that reflected sustained commercial momentum across multiple radio formats rather than a single spike of popularity.
On the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, "That's the Way" performed even more impressively, reaching the top of the country chart and spending multiple weeks at or near number one. The crossover performance on the pop Hot 100 alongside the strong country chart showing indicated that the record was finding audiences beyond the core country music demographic, a pattern that characterized the most commercially successful country recordings of the period when Nashville's production values and pop radio increasingly overlapped.
The Late 1990s Country-Pop Crossover Era
The late 1990s and early 2000s were a period of unusual commercial vitality for country music in the mainstream pop marketplace. Artists including Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, and the Dixie Chicks had demonstrated that country music, produced with sufficient commercial polish, could compete at the top of the mainstream pop charts. Messina's commercial success in this environment was substantial, but she was sometimes categorized as part of the second tier of the crossover wave, achieving consistent country chart success without quite reaching the level of mainstream pop dominance attained by Twain or Hill at their respective commercial peaks.
"That's the Way" represented Messina's commercial peak in terms of Hot 100 crossover performance, and the 20-week chart run demonstrated that the record had legs beyond a simple initial burst of radio play. The combination of a strong country base with genuine pop crossover suggested that the production choices on Burn had successfully calibrated the record for multiple formats simultaneously, which was the essential commercial challenge facing Nashville producers trying to reach both core country and broader pop audiences.
02 Song Meaning
Themes and Legacy of Jo Dee Messina's "That's the Way"
"That's the Way" engages with a theme that has been central to country music throughout its commercial history: the acceptance of life's circumstances combined with the assertion of personal resilience in the face of change and loss. The song's narrator speaks from a position of hard-won equanimity, acknowledging difficulties while refusing to be defined or defeated by them. This thematic combination of vulnerability and strength has been one of the most durable formulas in mainstream country songwriting, connecting listeners who recognize their own experiences in the narrative with the performer who gives those experiences a musical form.
Messina's Vocal Authority
Jo Dee Messina's voice was one of the most powerful in country music during the late 1990s, capable of both the tender passages that balladry required and the full-voiced assertiveness that distinguished her uptempo recordings. On "That's the Way," the vocal performance navigated between these modes, using the verses to establish the emotional situation with relative restraint and then opening up in the chorus to deliver the song's affirmative core with the kind of physical force that country radio audiences responded to consistently during this period. The production by Byron Gallimore and Tim McGraw placed the vocal correctly in the mix, giving it space to breathe while surrounding it with an arrangement that reinforced the emotional trajectory of the lyric.
The country-pop production aesthetic of this period was sometimes criticized for sacrificing the rawness and regional specificity of classic country in favor of a generic commercial gloss. Messina's recordings, and "That's the Way" in particular, were positioned at the more polished end of this spectrum, but the vocal performances consistently introduced a level of emotional authenticity that distinguished them from the most formulaic crossover product of the era. The combination of commercial production and genuine vocal commitment was the defining quality of Messina's commercial recordings at their best.
Commercial Context and the Crossover Country Market
The crossover success of "That's the Way" on the Billboard Hot 100 placed Messina in the company of artists who were redefining country music's relationship with mainstream pop radio during the turn of the millennium. The commercial strategies that produced this crossover were deliberate and sophisticated, involving production choices, promotional decisions, and radio formats that were specifically designed to bridge the country and pop audiences. Curb Records was experienced in managing this kind of crossover strategy, and the label's promotional infrastructure helped position the single for maximum exposure across multiple formats.
The 20-week run on the Hot 100 was one of the longer chart performances for a country crossover record during this period, indicating that "That's the Way" had achieved genuine traction with the broader pop audience rather than simply benefiting from a brief promotional push. This sustained chart presence was the kind of commercial result that labels and artists in the country-pop crossover space worked toward, since it demonstrated that the audience for the record extended beyond the initial burst of country radio play into the broader pop marketplace.
Legacy in Messina's Career
"That's the Way" represents the commercial peak of Jo Dee Messina's Hot 100 crossover trajectory and stands as one of the defining recordings of her career. The combination of strong country chart performance and genuine pop crossover demonstrated that she was capable of competing at the highest commercial level in both formats simultaneously. Subsequent recordings continued to perform well on country charts, but the specific configuration of commercial and artistic factors that made "That's the Way" such a sustained success proved difficult to replicate. The recording remains a significant example of the country-pop crossover strategy executed at a high level of commercial and artistic competence, and the 20-week Hot 100 run stands as documented evidence of its reach across the American listening public.
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