Songoftheday 5/20/18 - I've got your picture in the palm of my hand and I'm squeezin' it, I'm teasin' it...
from the album In The Running (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #32 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5
Today's song of the day comes from synthpop veteran Howard Jones, whose last album of the 1980s, Cross That Line, scored him two top-40 pop hits in America with "Everlasting Love" and "The Prisoner". His fortunes in his home country of Britain were diminishing, as Cross That Line was his first album to fail to reach the top ten, and both singles peaked in the lower half of the top 100 chart. In 1992, Jones released his fifth studio album In The Running, which moved away from his fully electronic start to a more organic band arrangement. The first single from the record, "Lift Me Up", even sported a music video that began with Howard unplugging all his devices (presumably to signal this was a mostly instrumented affair)...
"Lift Me Up" became Howard's ninth and so far last top-40 pop hit in the U.S. in June of 1992. The single also reached Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, doing much better, climbing to #10 (his final time here as well). Internationally, the single did great in Canada, peaking at #6 for two weeks, while in the UK it stopped down at #52. Two more singles were released from the album, with "Two Souls" reaching #53 in Germany and "Tears To Tell" following "Lift Me Up" in Canada to go to #66. After this album was released a greatest hits record was put out as Jones and Warner/Elektra Records parted ways. Since then, he's been concentrating more behind the music business scenes, working with alternative acts like Propaganda, although he still tours with his own material. He's released seven more albums independently, with his most recent studio album being 2015's Engage. In 2005, he guested on dance act Mohito's single "Slip Away", which went to #82 in the UK and #96 in Australia.
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Jones included "Lift Me Up" on his concert album Live Acoustic America in 1996...
Up tomorrow: R&B/pop vocal group drop the tempo.
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