Songoftheday 11/8/20 - I'm lookin' over the skyline of the city, how loud quiet nights in the mist of crime...

 

 

"Gotham City" - R. Kelly

from the album Batman & Robin (Original Soundtrack) (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #9 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 10

 

Today's song of the day comes from singer/songwriter/producer/amateur urologist R. Kelly, who landed a huge hit in the end of 1996 with his Grammy-winning ballad "I Believe I Can Fly" from the movie Space Jam. A year later, Kelly contributed a song to another mainstream "popcorn movie", Batman & Robin. "Gotham City", written and produced by Kelly, as the fifth single from the soundtrack, after the top ten hit "Look Into My Eyes" from the rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. With Kelly's mainstream popularity riding high, the acoustic-style ballad was a natural pick for radio...

"Gotham City" became the second top ten hit from Batman & Robin in August of 1997. The song also climbed to #9 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart. Internationally, the single made the top ten in Germany (#6), Austria (#7), Hungary (#8), The UK (#9), Sweden (#9), the Netherlands (#9), Switzerland (#9), and Norway (#10). 

The soundtrack would go on to place five more singles on various Billboard and world charts besides the aforementioned two, the lead single "The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning" from the Smashing Pumpkins" (which went to #50 pop), and the club top-5 hit "Fun For Me" from Moloko. "House On Fire" from the English drum and bass band Arkana went to #3 on the Dance Club Play chart. Soul singer Eric Benet's "True To Myself" peaked at #43 on the R&B chart and "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 at #122. Jewel's "Foolish Games", repurposed from the soundtrack to be the "B-side" of "You Were Meant For Me", caused the single to recover to peak at #2. The industrial band Underworld's "Moaner" was a minor hit in the UK (#89) and Germany (#69). And lastly, rock band the Goo Goo Doll's saw their track "Lazy Eye" reach both the Mainstream (#9) and Alternative (#20) chart.

 

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Kelly did a rehaul to "Gotham City" for the single remix, and even filmed a different video...

 

Up tomorrow: R&B Divas lose a member but seem nonplussed about it.