Songoftheday 8/12/19 - You and I in this moment holding the night so close, hanging on still unbroken while outside the thunder rolls...
from the album The Sweetest Days (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #18 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16
Today's song of the day comes from singer/actress/beauty queen Vanessa Williams, who we last saw reaching the top three on the pop chart back in the spring of 1993 with her duet with Brian McKnight from the soundtrack to the TV show Beverly Hills, 90210, "Love Is". The following year, Williams returned with her third studio album, The Sweetest Days. The title track was released as the first single; written by Jon Lind, Wendy Waldman, and Phil Galdston (the same trio who wrote her #1 hit "Save The Best For Last"), the ballad was another classy affair that translated to weddings and anniversaries everywhere...
"The Sweetest Days" returned Vanessa to the American pop Top-40 in January of 1995. The song spent two weeks at #3 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart in Billboard magazine, while crossing over to their R&B chart at #40. Internationally, the song peaked at #6 in Canada, while just missing the top-40 in the UK (#41) and Australia (#47).
The second single from the Sweetest Days album, "The Way That You Love", carried a more minor-chord urban beat, and while it did better on the R&B chart as a result at #23, the song stalled at #67 on the pop Hot 100. However, the remixes of the track helped it climb to #6 on the Dance Club Play chart, and the song was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Performance in 1996, losing out to Anita Baker's "I Apologize". The album would also rebound with the re-release addition of the song that would become Vanessa's most recent top-40 hit, "Colors Of The Wind".
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A second version of the music video was created, featuring Vanessa mostly in a high rise apartment in a more romantic setting...
And here she is on Asian TV promoting the single...
and again, in concert...
Up tomorrow: Alternative soul duo remakes a blushing disco classic.
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