YMMV / Rascal Flatts

• Accidental Innuendo: The mere title of "Bob That Head" spawned many, many blowjob jokes.
• Audience-Alienating Era: Me and My Gang, Still Feels Good, and Unstoppable, despite having several radio hits and strong sales, were largely derided by critics for overly bombastic production, cheesy lyrics, and ear-splittingly loud and shrill vocals (the only exception being the highly-acclaimed "What Hurts the Most"). While the move to Big Machine Records after Lyric Street's closure in 2010 saw their critical acclaim return to where it was pre-Me and My Gang, their radio performance began to falter around that point.
• Awesome Music: "Bless the Broken Road," "I'm Movin' On", and "What Hurts the Most" are usually heralded as among their best.
  • Their take on “Life Is A Highway” too.
• Covered Up:
  • "Bless the Broken Road" had been recorded by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Marcus Hummon, Melodie Crittenden, and Sons of the Desert^note for their never-released second album before Rascal Flatts released it. Crittenden's version was also a single in 1997.
  • "What Hurts the Most" has also been released by both Jo O'Meara and Cascada. Mark Wills originally recorded it and almost released it as a single in 2003, and Faith Hill cut it for her 2005 Fireflies album but dropped it from the album at the last minute.
  • Thanks to its appearance in Cars, their cover of "Life Is a Highway" is more familiar than the Tom Cochrane original to Country Music audiences and younger people.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Even their biggest fans generally pretend that "Bob That Head" never happened.
• Franchise Original Sin: The heavier production style and emotional lyrics of "What Hurts the Most" are what helped it stand out in their catalog at the time, and likely the reason behind it being their Signature Song. However, five years of bloated Dann Huff production later, the bombast became unbearable.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: "My Wish" was written by Jeffrey Steele after he became a father, and later became this after Jay DeMarcus also became a father.
• Narm:
  • Almost all of their Lyric Street material ever since Me and My Gang, the first album that Dann Huff produced. Most of their Huff-era songs rely on lightweight, trite lyrics that are given a wall-of-sound production drenched in blaring strings and guitars. There are a few exceptions such as "What Hurts the Most", however.
  • Although it was their last single before Huff, "Skin (Sarabeth)" is a particularly Narmy little song about a girl who frets about going to the prom with no hair after cancer treatment... until she meets a boy who shaved his head out of sympathy and they go to the prom together.
• Signature Song: "Bless the Broken Road", "What Hurts the Most", and "Life Is a Highway".
• Song Association: Their cover of "Life Is a Highway" is heavily associated with the Cars franchise. This may be a cheat, however, since it was made specifically for the soundtrack of the first film.
• Win Back the Crowd: Nothing Like This and Changed, their first two Big Machine albums, were less overproduced (despite still being produced by Dann Huff) and had generally stronger songs. The upward trend continued with Rewind, where they finally ditched Huff in favor of producing by themselves.

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