Songoftheday 8/17/20 - To be completely honest it scares me to imagine what life would be without you...

 

 

"I'm Not Giving You Up" - Gloria Estefan

from the album Destiny (1996)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #40 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 1

 

Today's song of the day comes from Cuban-American pop star Gloria Estefan, whose 1996 album Destiny had seen its lead single "Reach" not reach the American pop Top-40 (by a couple of notches), her first English-language album to have that happen to. And that was even with a big tie-in to the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, for which the song was featured prominently and anchored its soundtrack. That was followed by the Latin dance track "You'll Be Mine (Party Time)", which climbed to #2 on Billboard magazine's Dance Club Play list, but stalled on the pop chart all the way down at #70. (The single did better internationally, reaching #18 in both the UK and Spain.) Appropriately, the third release from the underrated album would be the ballad "I'm Not Giving You Up", written by Gloria and band member Kike Santander about her marriage to Emilio, who produced the track. With the heartfelt original as well as the dance music transformation a la Toni Braxton's 'UnBreak My Heart", the single finally got mainstream radio to notice...

"I'm Not Giving You Up" returned Gloria to the American pop top-40 in January of 1997. The song also climbed all the way to #9 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary radio chart. At the same time, dance clubs were promoted the "B-Side" of the single, "Higher", which rose to #11 on the Dance Club Play list, and helped the double-shot single go to #5 on the Dance Singles Sales tally. Internationally, the single just missed the top ten in Spain at #11 ("Higher", released separately there, peaked at #32), and made her third British top-40 hit from the album at #28. 

A final release from Destiny, the Spanish version of "Steal Your Heart" called "No Pretendo", topped Billboard's Latin Songs chart and landed at #28 in Spain.

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Here's the club remix by Tony Moran that I adored, and although it didn't reach the proper Dance Club Play chart, rose to #5 on the singles sales list...

 

 

...and next up the B-side that did hit the dance chart just missing the top ten, "Higher"...

This is Gloria performing the song live on The Late Show with David Letterman...

And lastly, Estefan live in concert in Mexico with "I'm Not Giving You Up"...

Up tomorrow: A numerical pop-punk band is put through the blender.