Songoftheday 6/1/19 - You can live your life on the edge of your seat, you can take your place down on easy street...

"Ain't Got Nothing If You Ain't Got Love" - Michael Bolton
from the album The One Thing (1993)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: unable to chart 
Billboard Hot 100 airplay peak: #30 (one week)
Weeks in the Hot 100 airplay top-40: 5

Today's song of the day comes from soft-rock balladeer king Michael Bolton, whose 1993 album The One Thing may not have had the success of his late 1980s/early 1990s work, but still reached #3 on the albums sales chart and would go on to sell over three million copies. Also it had spun off a pair of top-40 pop hits in America with "Completely" and "Said I Loved You...But I Lied". The track "Soul Of My Soul" became a top-40 hit in the UK as well at #32. Instead of releasing another physical single in the U.S., Bolton and his record company promoted the track "Ain't Got Nothing If You Ain't Got Love" without a commercial release hoping to goose up sales. Co-written and produced by Robert "Mutt" Lange, the song is a clear copy of a Def Leppard record, down to the communal shouty call and response chorus. It did get some traction on mainstream radio, though looking back I feel it may have done better if it was put out as a cassingle for those who abhor his sappy side but are all aboard the pop-metal (Bon Jovi, Def Lep) train...

While "Ain't Got Nothing If You Ain't Got Love" was barred from charting on the Billboard pop Hot 100 because it lacked a physical release, the song got enough mainstream radio airplay to appear on their Hot 100 airplay chart in July of 1994. The song also climbed to #13 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") chart in Billboard. Internationally, the single went to #16 in Canada, and slipped on the German chart for a week at #98. For his final released from the set overseas, a remake of the soul classic "Lean On Me" was actually the biggest hit from the record in the UK at #14, while reaching the top-40 in Ireland (#21) and New Zealand (#36).

Up tomorrow: ANOTHER mulleted soft-rock god classifies her romance.