Songoftheday 6/16/20 - I love the way you look tonight with your hair hangin' down on your shoulders...
from the album 18 Til I Die (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #24 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14
Today's song of the day comes from Canadian rock singer/songwriter Bryan Adams, who had followed up his massive album Waking Up The Neighbours, which spun off five top-40 pop hits in American in the early 1990s, with two back to back movie songs that both went to #1, "All For Love" (with Sting and Rod Stewart), and "Have You Ever Loved A Woman?". He also was a guest on Bonnie Raitt's live album Road Tested, and their version of "Rock Steady" was a top-20 hit in Canada at #17, and a minor success in the States at #73 (for a live track, not that bad). But when it came to the release of Bryan's seventh studio album, 18 Til I Die, something happened. Lead single "The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You" had all the boxes checked from his previous hit singles. It was co-written and co-produced with Robert "Mutt" Lange, the mastermind behind a lot of his success as well as with other rock acts like Def Leppard and most recently his new wife Shania Twain. The song got its movie placement in Excess Baggage, an Alicia Silverstone/Benicio Del Toro vehicle. It also sported an undeniably catchy guitar hook and memorable long title that's typical of Lange's work. But while the world made the single one of his biggest successes, topping the chart in Canada, and going top ten in the UK and top-40 in most of the rest of Europe, by Adams' standards the track relatively tanked, stopping just under the halfway mark on the pop Hot 100 at #52, getting to a meager #26 on Billboard magazine's Adult Top-40 chart, and not even making so much as a dent on the Mainstream Rock radio list. Perhaps his double-shot of ballads (triple if you include 1991's "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" had turned off rock music fans, pigeon-holing Bryan into the past-due older musician (like Sting and Rod Stewart) that got relegated to easy-listening radio, which had no interest in playing a single as loud as "The Only Thing...". Nevertheless, the song garnered a Grammy nomination for Adams, which he lost to Beck's more timely "Where It's At".
So coming to the second single release to save the album, Bryan played to the base with another sappy ballad, "Let's Make A Night To Remember". With Adams and Lange co-writing and producing again, the midtempo but softer love song gave the fans who loved "All For Love" and "Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman" what they craved, and it at least put him back in an upward trajectory...
Yeah, Bryan had the "Karen" haircut before it was cool. (Kidding, Bry.)
"Let's Make It A Night To Remember" put Adams back into the American top-40 pop chart in October of 1996. The song climbed to #6 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, spending over a half of a year (27 weeks) on the list, while also lasting about as long on their Adult Top-40 format tally, topping out at #14. Internationally, the single again topped the Canadian singles chart for two weeks, and reached the top ten in the Czech Republic (#4), Australia (#7), and the UK (#10). It also made the top-40 in New Zealand (#17), Ireland (#25), Iceland (#27), Austria (#34), and Sweden (#39). The 18 Til I Die album at least made the top-40, peaking at #31, his lowest rank there since his pre-fame album You Want It, You Got It in 1981. It did go platinum, selling over a million copies in the U.S..
The next single from the record, "Star", also had a movie tie-in with Robin Williams' 1996 film Jack, but beside making the top-20 in the UK at #13, went unnoticed here. That was followed internationally by title track "18 Til I Die", which got to #21 in Canada and #22 in the UK. Then came "Do To You", which landed at #6 on the Canadian singles chart. Now during that time, American radio still had Bryan on, but in the form of his duet with Barbra Streisand, "I Finally Found Someone", a top ten hit and future SOTD. Finally, the love ballad "I'll Always Be Right There" was promoted to radio, and it was a decent success at "easy listening" here, spending a week at #3 at Adult Contemporary and #33 on the Adult Top-40 list. Since it wasn't released as a single, the song couldn't place on the official pop Hot 100 chart in Billboard, but it got to #59 on the Airplay component of the tally, while in Canada it peaked at #14. To be honest, 18 Til I Die is a pretty solid effort from Adams, and didn't really deserve the scorn America gave it. But that's the price you sometimes pay for big success in a genre that's not your first wheelhouse.
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Here's Bryan appearing on the Rosie O'Donnell Show to promote the single in 1996...
And again live in concert in Chile in 2007...
Lastly, Adams on his acoustic concert set Bare Bones in 2010...
Up tomorrow: A Swedish gemstone of a singer declares it an evening.
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