Best known for hits like “Margaritaville” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise”, Jimmy Buffett turned slowing down into an art form—and an empire. Selling more than 20 million records across the world, his easy “Gulf and Western” style will permeate poolside parties for generations to come. Buffett remained active right up until his death in 2023 at age 76, releasing his 30th studio album, Life on the Flip Side, on May 29, 2020. Just a couple short weeks later, on this day (June 14) in 2020, the album had climbed to the top of the country charts, giving the two-time Grammy nominee his highest-charting LP in more than 15 years.
Jimmy Buffett Scored His Third Number-One Album
Arriving 50 years after Jimmy Buffett’s debut album, Life on the Flip Side also debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200. It marked the 12th top 10 album of Jimmy Buffett’s career.
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Buffett had a hand in writing all but two of the album’s 14 tracks, including “Down at the Lah De Dah” and “Slack Tide”.
If Life on the Flip Side didn’t exactly break new ground, that was the point. During an unprecedented time of shutdown in spring 2020, many were craving the familiarity of a Jimmy Buffett album.
“We’re not out there trying to make any mark these days,” he told cleveland.com. “That’s beyond any interest to me. But I wanted to do something that people who have been with us for a long time, and the new fans and younger fans we’re picking up, that they would like as well as the older ones and just add it to their collection. We wanted to make an album that sounded cohesive, like it had a theme to it, like chapters in a book. When you listen to this thing in sequence, I think it kinda helps people out.”
This Marked His First New Album in Nearly a Decade
Life on the Flip Side arrived seven years after its predecessor, 2013’s Songs from St. Elsewhere. But don’t think Jimmy Buffett was simply resting on his laurels during that lull. The “One Particular Harbor” crooner was pouring into his 2018 Broadway musical, Escape to Margaritaville.
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“Wewere on a two-year tour of the show, and it was doing great, when we had to shut down,” he told CBS. “So, that’s what was goin’ for about five of those years, when people thought I was just kinda layin’ in the hammock? No. I was workin’!”
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