Album · John Butler Trio
Grand National by John Butler Trio
Grand National is an album by John Butler Trio, released in 2007. 4 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 8 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Better Than”, on 5 lists with a best position of #4.
Grand National, the fourth album from the John Butler Trio, came out in 2007 on Jarrah Records, the independent label Butler co-owns with the Waifs and their shared manager Philip Stevens. The Fremantle outfit, here Butler with bassist Shannon Birchall and drummer Michael Barker, weighed somewhere between 22 and 25 songs for it, some dating back to the Sunrise Over Sea days.
The name comes from the antique dobro Butler inherited from his grandfather: Dobro and National were rival makers of resonator guitars in the 1920s before merging in 1934. The music is warm, stomping roots rock with loose, funky grooves underneath. It went straight to number one in Australia, topped the Billboard Heatseekers chart in the US, sat in the ARIA top 20 for more than nine months and was triple platinum by March 2008, the country's 7th best-selling album of 2007. It was also up for Australian Album of the Year at the J Awards.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Grand National on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Better Than | 5 | #4 | – | 2007–2026 | |
| 2 | Funky Tonight | 1 | #12 | – | 2006 | |
| 3 | Used to Get High | 1 | #22 | – | 2007 | |
| 4 | Good Excuse | 1 | #55 | – | 2007 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.