Songoftheday 12/21/16 - Woke up to the sound of pouring rain, the wind would whisper and I'd think of you...
from the album Skid Row (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13
Today's song of the day comes from the hard rock band Skid Row, who had landed a top ten hit in the fall of 1989 with the bad-boy anthem "18 and Life". The third single from their self-titled debut album is the power-ballad "I Remember You". Written by guitarist Dave Sabo and bass player Rachel Bolan, it was the song rocker chicks were serenaded by in the winter of 1990. Sebastian Bach's searing and soaring vocals gave more "oomph" to the run-of-the-mill looking back lyrics...
"I Remember You" became Skid Row's second top 10 pop hit in the U.S. in February of 1990. The single also climbed to #23 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart. Internationally, the single climbed to #2 in New Zealand, and made the top-40 in Australia (#12), Canada (#14), and the UK (#36).
The following year, the band released their second album, Slave To The Grind. While the edgier record did the notable feat of debuting at #1 on Billboard's Album Sales chart, pop radio stayed mostly away, with single "Wasted Time" sneaking on to the pop chart at #88. Meanwhile, in the UK, they actually did much better (rare for an American hard rock band), scoring two top-20 hits with "Wasted Time" (#20) and "Monkey Business" (#19). Also, a re-release of their debut single "Youth Gone Wild" hit the top 40 there at #22 in 1992. It would take three years and a new producer before their third release, Subhuman Race, which would give the band their most recent American rock radio hit with "Into Another" (#28). But even despite the evolution of their sound to fit in with the grunge rock dominating radio, their returns were diminishing, and a year after the Subhuman album lead singer Sebastian Bach quit the band. They did continue to record a few more albums with new vocalists, but never regained the success as they did under Bach, who went on to be more visible through stints on reality/competition shows than his music.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the band performing live in Japan in 1989...
...and finally, again at Wembley Stadium in 1991, when they opened for Guns N' Roses...
Up tomorrow: Legendary producer goes back to the block to redo one of his earlier successes.
Comments