Songoftheday 11/16/19 - You think you own whatever land you land on, the earth is just a dead thing you can claim...
from the album Pocahontas (Original Soundtrack) (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 19
Today's song of the day comes from singer/actress/beauty queen Vanessa Williams, whose third studio album The Sweetest Days had gifted her with another top-20 pop hit in the title track "The Sweetest Days" at the beginning of 1995. Also that year, Vanessa recorded the theme song for the new Disney animated movie Pocahontas. "Colors Of The Wind", written by Alan Menken and Steven Schwartz, was sung by Judy Kuhn in the film itself, but Vanessa's version graced the end credits. Like most of the Disney songs of the early 90s, it was a huge success and brought Williams' her most recent big hit...
"Colors Of The Wind" became Vanessa's fourth and so far final top ten hit (and seventh top-40 pop hit) in August of 1995. The song spent a week at #2 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio format chart, but peaked down at #53 on their R&B genre chart. Internationally, the single rose to #8 in the Netherlands, and reached the top-40 in Canada (#11), Ireland (#16), Australia (#16), the UK (#21), New Zealand (#25), and Belgium (#38). At the Academy Awards, the song won the Oscar for writers Menken and Schwartz for Best Song, while at the Grammys in 1996, it lost for Best Female Pop Performance to Annie Lennox's "No More I Love You's".
Vanessa went back and released another single from the Sweetest Days album, "You Can't Run", which went to #40 on the R&B chart while missing the pop Hot 100 altogether. However the song earned a nomination for Best R&B Song for its writer, Babyface, but lost to Stevie Wonder for his "For Your Love".
The following year, Vanessa released a Greatest Hits album, which included another soundtrack contribution, this time for the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Eraser. "Where Do We Go From Here" ended up going to #71 on the American pop chart and #90 R&B, but was a massive success at "easy listening" radio, peaking at #5 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary tally and spending half a year (26 weeks) on the chart. Her next studio album would be a holiday release later in 1996 with Star Bright. The album earned another Grammy nomination for Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album (which went to Christian rock band Jars of Clay for Much Afraid), and from it her take on "Do You Hear What I Hear?" climbed to #15 on the Adult Contemporary list. The next year found Vanessa putting out her first secular studio album since The Sweetest Days titled Next. The bubbly lead single "Happiness" was able to make it to #38 on the R&B chart (her most recent entry there), while ballad "Oh How The Years Go By" went all the way to #6 on the Adult Contemporary chart again spending 26 weeks on the list, helped by her redemption appearance at the Miss America contest that year. In 1998, she recorded another soundtrack single, this time a collaboration with Chayanne titled "Refugio de Amor (You Are My Home)"; that song reached #3 on Billboard's Hot Latin Tracks and #5 on their Tropical/Salsa Songs list. After a break, she returned in 2004 with her second holiday offering in Silver & Gold; the title track went to #4 on the Adult Contemporary list that season. She followed that success up with her next studio secular set Everlasting Love. From it Vanessa's remake of the Stylistics' "You Are Everything" climbed to #5 on the Dance Club Play DJ chart in Billboard, while the ballad version went to #16 on the Adult Contempoary list. Her most recent studio album was The Real Thing which came out in 2009 during her starring turn in the sitcom Ugly Betty. The remixes of the title track got to #6 on the Dance Club list.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Vanessa performed the song at the Academy Awards in 1996, where the song won...
Here's Vanessa with the Boston Pops in 2004...
..and again from the Kennedy Center last year...
Finally, I have Judy Kuhn, who sang in the movie, on stage....
Up tomorrow: Another big award-winning movie song, this one from Batman Returns.
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