Robbed hit of the week 4/27/20 - Gloria Estefan's "Reach"...
from the albums Destiny and Rhythm of the Games (both 1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #42
This week's "robbed hit" comes from Gloria Estefan, who we last saw here with her 1994 covers album Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, which spun off a pair of top-40 pop hits with her versions of "Turn The Beat Around" and "Everlasting Love". The following year, Gloria released her second all-Spanish solo record Abriendo Puertas. A hit on Latin radio, the set won a Grammy Award for best Tropical/Salsa album, and produced two club hits in America with "Abriendo Puertas (Opening Doors)" (#3 Dance) and "Tres Deseos (Three Wishes)", which topped Billboard magazine's Club Play chart for a week. The next spring, Estefan returned with a new song which would be featured in the broadcast of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and included on its "soundtrack", Rhythm of the Games. "Reach", written by Gloria with song doctor Diane Warren, and produced by her husband Emilio with Lawrence Dermer, was an inspirational ballad not unlike her 1991 #1 hit "Coming Out Of The Dark"...
While "Reach" would climb to #5 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, the song stalled right under the pop top-40 in August of 1996. The song would also go to #29 on the Adult Top-40 radio format, while the remixes of "Reach" would help it spend a week at #2 on the Dance Club Play tally. Internationally, the single made the top ten in Spain (#2), the Czech Republic (#3), Hungary (#6), and Norway (#10), while reaching the top-40 in the UK (#15), Sweden (#19), Italy (#21), Australia (#23), and Canada (#26). The Destiny album, which had "Reach" as the lead single, did make the top-40 on the sales chart at #23. At the Grammy Awards in 1997, Gloria was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal for "Reach", which Toni Braxton won for "UnBreak My Heart".
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An alternative video was made that was all black-and-white, called "the Vogue Version"...
Gloria performed the song on Letterman to promote the album...
And here's the "Aphrodisiac Mix", one of the remixes done by the Love To Infinity team that helped the single make the runner-up position on the dance chart...
Next is Gloria performing the song at the closing ceremony to the Olympics in 1996...
For the Spanish language version of the song, "Puedes Llegar", she assembled a group of Latin music stars like Julio Iglesias, Jon Secada, Ricky Martin, Placido Domingo, and more. It reached #2 on Billboard's Hot Latin Tracks chart...
Here's Gloria in concert...
And finally, performing her song from her home from just a couple of weeks ago...
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