Songoftheday 4/22/20 - They'll be giving off such a strength, that all the walls of hate war and racism will fall down...
from the album Dreamland (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #21 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16
Today's song of the day comes from dance music producer/musician Robert Miles, who actually was born Roberto Concina in Switzerland and grew up in Italy. His breakthrough single "Children" was originally recorded in 1995, but after an independent release oversold by hundreds of thousands, Robert was signed to the dance label Deconstruction (and eventually Arista Records in the US), where the instrumental trance track became a massive success all over the world, one of the final non-vocal hits for a long time. Written and produced by the artist, the single would be his first and biggest success in America...
"Children" became Miles' first and only top-40 pop hit in the U.S. in July of 1996. The song also climbed to #23 on Billboard magazine's Adult Top-40 radio chart, while the remixes of the song helped it top their Dance Club Play list for a week. Internationally, the single topped the singles chart in Austria, Belgium (W), Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. It also reached the top ten in the UK (#2), Ireland (#2), the Netherlands (#3), New Zealand (#4), the Czech Republic (#4), Australia (#5), and Hungary (#5). In Canada, it stopped at the same rank as in the States at #21.
The second single from Miles' debut album Dreamland was the song "One and One", which sported proper lyrics sung by Maria Naylor. While it became his second #1 club hit, it stalled down at #54 on the pop Hot 100 in America. The song did better internationally, going to #1 in Italy, Romania, and Belgium, and #3 in the UK, Sweden, Norway, and Ireland, and #5 in Germany. A third release from the record, the instrumental "Fable", scored a third #1 club hit in America, and went to #1 in his native Italy, hit #2 in Finland, and peaked at #3 in Belgium, Sweden, and Germany, and got to #7 in the UK. The Dreamland set hit the top half of the American sales chart at #54, selling over a half million copies.
In 1997, Robert returned with his sophomore effort 23am, which featured more vocal tracks, including the first single "Freedom" featuring Kathy Sledge from the disco group Sister Sledge. While the song rose to #3 in Italy, #4 in Belgium, #9 in Spain, and #15 in the UK, the single went unnoticed in the States. Leaving the Deconstruction/Arista labels and going indie (but through EMI in the States), Robert released Organik in 2001. Lead single "Paths" was his final minor British hit at #74. He put out a couple more indie albums, but was more in demand as a DJ and radio broadcaster in the Spanish resort of Ibiza. His last album, Thirteen, came out in 2011, but in 2017, Miles passed away from cancer at the age of 47.
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There was a special remix called "the Message Version" that included spoken lyrics...
and here's the original European release music video for the instrumental...
And Miles appearing live in San Marino in 1996...
In 2001, the German trance group 4 Clubbers released a cover of "Children", which peaked at #39 in Germany and almost made the British Top-40 at #45...
The London classical crossover quartet Escala included their string version of "Children" on their self-titled debut set that went to #2 in the UK in 2009...
Three years later, the Swiss DJ/producer team of Jack Holiday and Mike Candys released another take on the trance classic as "Children 2012", which got to #22 in Belgium and #54 in France...
Here's a nice little recap of the song...
And finally, last year the Ministry Of Sound label commissioned an orchestra to perform the song live at the Royal Albert Hall in London...
Up tomorrow: R&B newcomer sings enticingly for The Nutty Professor.
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