Songoftheday 10/23/20 - I have often dreamed of a far off place, where a hero's welcome would be waiting for me...

 

 

"Go The Distance" - Michael Bolton

from the albums Disney's Hercules (Original Soundtrack) and All That Matters (both 1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #24 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 11

 

Today's song of the day comes from singer/songwriter Michael Bolton, who dominated the early 1990s with his women-wooing soft-pop singles. But as the second half of the decade came, his style of adult contemporary music (like that of Richard Marx and Bryan Adams) was falling out of favor on mainstream radio. His Greatest Hits 1985-1995 retrospective sold millions, but new single "Can I Touch You...There?" only managed to reach the bottom half of the American pop top-40 in 1995.  In 1997, Bolton returned with a song he didn't write, this time a contribution to the Disney animated movie Hercules. Written by the film company's soundtrack standby Alan Mencken along with David Zippel, and produced by Bolton with Walter Afanasieff (Mariah Carey's go-to at the time), this seemed to be a sure shot to return him to great heights given the studio's successful track record. And while it did bring Michael back to the pop top-40, it would be for his last time so far...

"Go The Distance" reached the American top-40 in July of 1997. The song was much more successful at "easy listening" radio (his base), where it spent three weeks at #1 with a half a year on the list (26 weeks). Internationally, the single reached #14 in the UK (as a double-sided single with "The Best Of Love"), and #26 in Canada. The Hercules soundtrack peaked at #37 on the Billboard 200 sales chart, going on to sell over a half a million copies. The song would go on to appear on Bolton's next album All That Matters, which also snuck into the top-40 of the albums chart at #39. At the Academy Awards, "Go The Distance" was up for an Oscar for Best Original Song, losing out to Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic.

The second song from All That Matters promoted to radio was the Babyface co-write "The Best Of Love", which again did well with the older crowd, climbing to #5 on the Adult Contemporary list, but stalled down at #65 on Billboard's Hot 100 Airplay chart (since it wasn't released as a proper single). That was followed by "Safe Place From The Storm", which Bolton wrote with Diane Warren. It rose to #18 on the AC list. 

In 2002, after a sidetrack into an pop-opera as well as another remakes album to fulfill his contract with Columbia Records, Bolton came back with his next studio set at Jive, Only A Woman Like You. Lead single "Only A Woman Like You" climbed to #5 on the Adult Contemporary radio chart, but only managed to "bubble under" the pop Hot 100 at #123. Since then he went indie for the most part, with a few more adult contemporary hits, his most recent being "I'm Not Ready" with Australian singer Delta Goodrem going to #29 there in 2011. He's since released seven more studio albums, the latest being A Symphony Of Hits in 2019. One of them, Motown tribute Ain't No Mountain High Enough, made the Billboard 200 at #38 in 2013. But his biggest exposure came courtesy of Saturday Night Live offshoot This Lonely Island, providing the chorus vocals for "Jack Sparrow", which climbed to #69 on the pop chart in 2011 and made the top ten in Norway and Sweden. 

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

While Bolton's "Go The Distance" played in the end credits of the film, the version in the main part of the movie was sung by Roger Bart...

For the Spanish-language version of the movie, Ricky Martin sang the end-credits as "No Importa La Distancia". This take went to #10 on Billboard's Hot Latin Pop Airplay chart...

and lastly, here's Michael performing "Go The Distance" in concert...

Up tomorrow: Ohio rappers want Batman to see closely.