Songoftheday 10/26/20 - There's two things I know for sure, she was sent here from heaven and she's daddy's little girl...

 

 

"Butterfly Kisses" - Bob Carlisle

from the album Butterfly Kisses (Shades Of Grace) (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #10 (one week)

Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 11

 

Now that we're getting into the latter half of the 1990's there have been quite a few SOTD's that have not been "official" Billboard magazine top-40 hits. This started because the heralded trade periodical had a strict policy about their Hot 100 pop chart that the song had to be released as a physical commercial single for sale in the majority of record stores in America. Now before then, that wasn't really an issue, with the seven inch vinyl single, with one song on the front and another on the back, had been one of the prevailing music delivery forms since the beginning of the rock era, allowing an entry point especially for younger fans with a limited budget to purchase their favorite song on the radio (or at one point in the jukebox). In fact, there were singles in the early 1970s and again in the 1990s that had both sides become popular and in return reach the pop chart. The big radio hits that weren't put out in this fashion were rare and too far between to make any real impact (Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" one of the few notable examples), and it created a market separate from the music industry's albums, which would be less fluid and more establish-act based. However in the 90's, as electronic monitoring of actual sales and airplay not only transformed the charts with the "Soundscan" and "Radio Monitor" era more accurately giving numbers of what is truly happening aside from what record store employees report, but the business itself got overtaken by a new generation of label executive employees. The 1960's and 70's era of excessive spending and promotion somehow gave way to a Wall Street-centric precision on making money for investors overtaking the creative process. And squeezing album sales, which as the CD era dawn could net 11 to 17 dollars a pop, over the single, which at a couple dollars at most was seen as a "loss-leader", was coming into front. And so by the mid-decade, big radio hits were at first held back from being released until their apex at radio had occurred, to ensure an eye-opening debut (see Michael Jackson's "You Are Not Alone"). Then, for some artists, it started to be an actual strategy to not even release a physical single at all, to force fans to shell out for the entire album in order to get the song they wanted, hoping that the disc would spin off enough hits to justify it. Sometimes, it worked (see No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom album), sometimes it didn't (see Dog's Eye View's Happy Nowhere set). It was usually geared towards rock music, with the (IMHO) idiotic idea that they would be more wont to put out for the album, as opposed to R&B and rap, which was more budget conscious like it or not (the Fugees being a notable example). This all got put on its head when Billboard eventually changed the Hot 100 to allow all songs singles or not to place on the list, but a year before that, there was an odd thing that was happening, almost mimicking the music industry of the 1950s and 60s. Where there was a radio hit that wasn't available as a single by one artist, another artist would cover it and release it as a single, and some people would buy it just for that reason. There were two notable hits in 1997 that were popular in two versions, though the second pair happened more organically (that will be coming up soon). But this would be the biggest example of that happening, and perhaps speeding up the process for the magazine to change their rules. But aside from the charts, it should be noted that this folly of playing with the business politics of "the single" did more to damage the music industry in the long run than most people want to admit, sending off aftershocks that would give rise in the internet era to file-sharing behemoths like Napster and Kazaa, allowing people to find the music they want without having to shell out a big bill for an album, which then, even with iTunes, numbed a big chunk of the public into being used to not really paying for music, which eventually brought in the "streaming" model, for better or for worse (mostly for worse for musicians). It made art seem "cheap" and the act of owning it almost universally mocked. But I digress..

Today's song of the day is from Christian pop singer/songwriter Bob Carlisle, who had been a member of the Contemporary rock-gospel group Allies in the late 1980s and early 1990s before going solo. The Californian released his self-titled debut set in 1993, followed by Hope Of A Man a year later. Both spun off a handful of song successful of religious radio, including one, "Giving You The Rest Of My Life", which topped the Christian Rock airplay chart. 

In 1997, Carlisle released his third album, originally titled Shades Of Grace. A lead single, "Mighty Love", reached the top-20 on the Christian rock airplay chart (#18). But there was another song that anchored the beginning and end of the set, that would get a much wider audience. "Butterfly Kisses", written by Carlisle with former Allies bandmate Randy Thomas and produced by Larry Day, was a super-sweet commemoration of his own daughter's growing up and sweet sixteen celebration. A sentiment that was so so relatable translated well into the secular world, and with both a pop and "country"-style production, radio started to play the song enough that with Jive Records coming on board to promote and market it, the song became a "viral" hit as what would be in the year that America Online was in half the American houses that had the internet. And so a big radio hit was born, even flying in the face of soft rock's slow demise on mainstream stations, as well as a staple for every wedding father-daughter dance to come...

Carlisle's "Butterfly Kisses" spent an amazing seven weeks on top of Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening" radio chart), and climbed into the top ten of the monitored pop radio list in June of 1997. However, since the song wasn't available as a standalone single (apart from the Christian book market), it wasn't able to make the "official" Hot 100 chart. The song also rose to #13 on the Adult Top-40 list, while the "country" version even crossed over to #45 on the Country Singles list, both not requiring a single release. The plan did work in a way, with the retitled Butterfly Kisses (Shades Of Grace) album topping the Billboard 200 sales chart, going on to move over two million copies (the older-skewing audience ready to plunk down some coin helped). Internationally, the single went to #16 in the Netherlands, while stalling at #52 in Canada and #56 in the UK. At the Grammy Awards in 1998, "Butterfly Kisses" won the award for Best Country Song. 

However, here is where it gets a bit murky on two counts. Because there was no entry point for younger fans to purchase the song, there were no more "hits" from the Butterfly Kisses album that came about. His next album the year after, Stories From The Heart, managed to place on the Billboard 200 chart at #191, most likely from the big older fan market from his name recognition alone, but that would pretty much be it, and his next set, Nothing But The Truth, didn't get attention even in the Christian market, and remains his most recent studio set in 2000.

Meanwhile, there were not just one but two country acts that quickly took advantage of this situation to record a cover of "Butterfly Kisses", and release it as a single. One of them will be tomorrow's SOTD. The other, Jeff Carson, also put out the song, which went to #66 on the country chart and just missed the pop Hot 100, "bubbling under" at #103.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the "country" version of Carlisle's version that narrowly missed that genre's radio top-40...

...and Jeff Carson's take, where he attempted to revive his career after a debut album that spun off three top ten radio hits...

Next up, on the Oprah Winfrey show, which caused the popularity of the song to skyrocket...

And again on the Tonight Show for the late-night audience...

Up tomorrow: And here we go again...