Songoftheday 8/12/18 - When you feel the sunlight fade into the cold night, don't know where to turn I don't know where to turn...
from the album Change Your World (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #27 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5
Today's song of the day comes from Contemporary Christian Music artist Michael W. Smith, who had followed the path of Amy Grant and scored a top ten pop hit in the summer of 1991 with the ballad "Place In This World". A year later, Smith released his Change Your World album, which again was geared for the mainstream pop market, with sprinkles of inspirational lyrics mixed in. The lead single, "I Will Be Here For You", was yet another ballad with a positive message written by Smith with song doctor supreme Diane Warren. Smith produced the track with keyboardist Mark Heimermann, and it again was positioned for the Michael Bolton and Celine Dion-loving crowd...
"I Will Be Here For You" became Smith's second and so far last top-40 pop hit in the U.S. in November of 1991. The song was a huge success on easy listening radio, topping Billboard's Adult Contemporary radio chart for two weeks (his biggest hit at that format). Internationally, the record was big up north, peaking at #8 in Canada for one week.
The second single from Change Your World, "Somebody Love Me", was another sappy ballad, and while it stalled down at #71 on the American pop chart, the song climbed all the way to #10 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary radio list. A third offering, the bright and shiny upbeat pop of "Picture Perfect", sounded like it was pulled from a rom-com movie, and "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 at #116.
In 1995, Smith returned with his I'll Lead You Home album, which was more religiously grounded, and while the album itself placed in the top-20 on the American albums sales chart, and seven tracks from it hit the Christian radio charts, nothing made the pop list here in the States ("Cry For Love" went to #1 on Billboard's Christian Hit Radio list). Three years later, with his Live The Life record, he landed his most recent hit on the main pop chart with "Love Me Good" which hit #61. He had a moderately successful single on the Adult Contemporary chart here when the title track to his This Is Your Time album scaled to #25. With the crossover of Christian music on the pop charts fading fast with the new millenium, Smith's most recent pop radio hit came in 2005 when he took a cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" to #28 on the Adult Contemporary tally. He continues to be a big Christian music presence; in 2014 his record Sovereign went to #10 on the American albums sales chart. And his most recent album, Surrounded, was released in February of this year, and hit #188 on the Album Chart, promoted by the single "Surrounded (Fight My Battles)" which peaked at #33 on Billboard's Christian Songs chart.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
First up, a clip of Smith and his crew talking about the conception of "I Will Be Here For You"...
And lastly, Smith in concert later in the 1990s...
Up tomorrow: Jersey boys proscribe a bit of patience.
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