Songoftheday 9/5/18 - I can show you the world shining shimmering splendid, tell me princess now when did you last let your heart decide?

"A Whole New World (Aladdin's Theme)" - Peabo Bryson & Regina Belle
from the albums Aladdin (Original Soundtrack) (1992), Passion (Regina Belle, 1993), and Through The Fire (Peabo Bryson, 1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 18

Today's song of the day is a song from the fourth movie in the "Disney Renaissance" era of animated movies that began with 1989's The Little Mermaid. The third release, Beauty And The Beast, not only was a huge success, garnering an Oscar nomination, but also crossing over to the mainstream music world by scoring a top ten pop hit in the spring of 1992 with "Beauty And The Beast" title song done by Canadian pop ingenue Celine Dion and R&B veteran Peabo Bryson. Later that year, Disney released the epic display of Mideastern storytelling, Aladdin. With actors Scott Weinger and Linda Larkin voicing the couple of Aladdin and Jasmine, and comic genius Robin Williams playing the Genie, the movie ended up overpassing expectations, becoming the biggest-grossing movie of the year. Sadly, songwriter Howard Ashman, who brought the idea of the movie to Disney, passed away during the making of the film, with writing partner Alan Menken finishing the music with Tim Rice. Menken and Rice would compose the title song for Aladdin, "A Whole New World", again bringing on Peabo Bryson to perform the end credits "pop" version of the track. This time, Bryson was paired with another up and coming artist, this time soul singer Regina Belle. At that time, Belle had an impressive run of hit on the R&B chart, but the closest she came to the pop Top-40 was "Make It Like It Was", which peaked at #43. The resulting release would end up being the biggest pop success to ever come from the Disney animated team, being the song that would finally unseat Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" (also from a movie) from #1 after 14 weeks...

"A Whole New World" topped the American pop chart in March of 1993, the first and only Disney song to so far hit #1 on Billboard's Hot 100. It also set a record for the latest a new #1 ascended to the top in a calendar year. The song spent six weeks at #1 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") format chart, and peaked at #21 on the magazine's R&B genre list. Internationally the single reached the top ten in Canada (#6), New Zealand (#8), and Australia (#10). The duet also made the top-40 in Ireland (#11), the UK (#12), Belgium (#14), and the Netherlands (#14). It would go on to win an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Original Song, and then three Grammy Awards for Pop Duo/Group Vocal Performance, Best song from a Movie or TV, and most importantly, Song of the Year (another first for Disney).

After the success of "A Whole New World", both Peabo and Regina released albums in the following years that included the song, with Regina's coming first in 1993 with Passion. The second single from that set, the inspirational ballad "If I Could", went to #9 on Billboard's R&B chart, #12 on their adult contemporary list, and #52 on the pop Hot 100. That was followed by "Quiet Time", a duet with Barry White, which peaked at #47 on the R&B Airplay chart, then "Dream In Color", which stopped at #63 on the R&B main list. Meanwhile Bryson, who still had another top-40 hit to come, included "A Whole New World" on his Through The Fire record, though he was unable to pull any more hits from the set. Regina would continue to chart on the R&B list, with her cover of the Teddy Pendergrass classic "Love T.K.O." bringing her back into the soul top-40 in 1995. She's concentrated more on gospel music in recent years, with her most recent R&B chart appearance being in 2008 with "God Is Good" (R&B #83). Peabo right now has an Adult R&B hit on his hands with "Love Like Yours And Mine", which is sitting at #3 on that format chart.

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At the 1993 Oscars, Brad Kane and Lea Salonga, who sang "A Whole New World" in the main part of the movie, reenacted for the broadcast...