Songoftheday 7/18/20 - I could never see what fate had planned for me, and then you came and made a dream my reality...
from the album Sweet Dreams (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: did not chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #35 (one week)
Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 4
Today's song of the day comes from the German-American Eurodance act La Bouche, who had landed two big top-40 pop hits in America with "Be My Lover" and "Sweet Dreams". For the third and final song promoted to radio in the U.S., they went back to their original single, which was a club remake of a soft rock classic from the 1970's, "Fallin' In Love". Originally recorded by the trio of Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds (who themselves where members of the 1960s band the T-Bones), the song was written by (Dan) Hamilton and Ann Hamilton, and topped Billboard magazine's pop Hot 100 chart in 1975...
Melanie Thornton and Lane McCray, under the La Bouche moniker created by producer Frank Farian (yes, the Milli Vanilli guy), released "Fallin In Love" as the first American single in 1995. It "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 chart at #111, and went to #3 on the Dance Club Play chart in Billboard. After the success of "Be My Lover" and "Sweet Dreams", the record company started promoting a completely new remix of "Fallin' In Love" to radio that was almost indistinguishable as a cover, and this time they had enough airplay to make the higher regions of that component of the chart, though I'm not sure why it wasn't on the Hot 100 since it did originally get released physically (perhaps it was so old it was a "recurrent", but that didn't make sense too much either, since older songs reentered the charts periodically. I know with today's "chart rules" it would've made the top-40)...
The revamped version of "Fallin' In Love" spent a month in the top-40 of the Hot 100 Airplay chart in America in November of 1996. Internationally, the original version (which was much more similar to the 1970s original with a midtempo dance beat) made the top-40 in Finland (#4), Hungary (#4), Germany (#13), Italy (#13), Switzerland (#13), Austria (#13), the Netherlands (#15), Belgium (#15W/#23F), Sweden (#19), Iceland (#20), France (#24), Ireland (#27), New Zealand (#33), Canada (#39), and Australia (#39). In the UK, the single just missed the top-40 at #43. A final international single, "I Love To Love", reached the top-40 in Hungary (#5), Australia (#6), Austria (#13), Italy (#13), Finland (#18), Germany (#21), Belgium (#21F), France (#27), and the Netherlands (#30).
While Melanie and Lane were having their delayed success in the U.S., in Europe they released a new single "Bolingo (Love Is In The Air)", which made the top-40 in Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Austria. However, their next release would wait until the following year. In 1997, their sophomore album S.O.S. (named A Moment Of Love in Europe) was released, with the single "You Won't Forget Me" sent to radio. While the song reached the top-40 in Germany, France, and Sweden, it stalled at #48 in America, while the remixes stopped at #29 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart. The fourth single, "S.O.S.", was the last charting hit in their German base at #78. Melanie left La Bouche in 2000 to persue a solo career, and the following year had released a Christmas-styled single, "Wonderful Dream (Holidays Are Forever)" which was co-opted for a Coca-Cola ad. However on her promo run for the song, she tragically died in a plane crash. Posthumously, the song went to #3 in Germany, #3 in Switzerland, and #7 in Austria. After her death, Farian restarted La Bouche with McCray and singer Kayo Shekoni (who was in the La Bouche-adjacent group Le Click) for a one-off single "In Your Life", which went to #9 on the American Dance Club Play chart. More recently Sophie Cairo joined as an official replacement for touring the "dance oldies" circuit.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the more faithful to the original version La Bouche released of "Fallin' In Love" in 1995...
Here's Melanie and Lane receiving a German gold record award and performing "Fallin' In Love" live (to track) in 1995...
and lastly, live in Germany in 1996...
Up tomorrow: two superstars have their most recent American top ten hit, from a movie one starred in.
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