Songoftheday 12/29/16 -Driving in my car with the wind run through your hair, I reach for you now but you're not there...

"Was It Nothing At All" - Michael Damian
from the album Where Do We Go From Here (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #24 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9

Today's song of the day comes from actor/singer Michael Damian, who had parlayed his celebrity from his starring role on the daytime "soap opera" The Young And The Restless to a recording career, scoring a #1 pop hit with a cover of David Essex's "Rock On" as well as a top-40 follow-up with "Cover Of Love".  The third single from his Where Do We Go From Here album was the break-up ballad "Was It Nothing At All". Written by Damian himself, it had the lush air of the sophisti-pop that had graced the mid-80s from the UK, and a touch of guitar like in George Michael's "A Different Corner"...

"Was It Nothing At All" became Damian's third and final top-40 pop hit in the U.S. in February of 1990. The single was a big hit on Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio, reaching #7 on Billboard's chart and hanging around for 28 weeks. A fourth single from the album, "Straight From My Heart", nicked the adult contemporary chart at #47.

In 1991, Damian released his next album, Dreams Of Summer, but the lead single, "What A Price To Pay", which also had the George Michael mark on it (this time sounding just like "Careless Whisper"), stalled down at #60. Another track, "(There'll Never Be) Another You", was a minor AC hit at #26. He spent the rest of the decade more prominent on the stage, starring in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat among other things. His most recent radio hit was a rework of "Rock On" in 2009 which went to #28 on the easy listening chart.

Up tomorrow: Hitmaking dance trio gets serious and asks some questions.