Songoftheday 1/4/21 - Won't somebody tell me so I can understand, if you love me how could you hurt me like that..
"The One I Gave My Heart To" - Aaliyah
from the album One In A Million (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #9 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 17
(Ed. Note - SOTD is back! That's for being patient and stopping by for my year-end countdown of 2020 "hit" songs. If you want to check out that series, you can click here.)
Today's song of the day comes from the gone-too-soon R&B singer Aaliyah, whose sophomore album One In A Million had landed her a top-40 record with "If Your Girl Only Knew" as well as a track that hit the top-40 of the pop airplay chart with "One In A Million". That was followed in the spring with the album cut "4 Page Letter", which wasn't released as a single in the U.S., but made it as high as #12 on Billboard magazine's R&B Airplay chart, as well as #59 on the pop Hot 100 Airplay tally. That summer, urban radio started to play the track "Hot Like Fire", a Timbaland/Missy Elliott composition which also made the R&B Airplay list at #31. But mainstream radio didn't catch on, until they got ahold of the other cut on the single, "The One I Gave My Heart To". Written by song doctor supreme Diane Warren and produced by Guy Roche (who would go on to work with Christina Aguilera), the ballad focused on a much softer side of the singer, as she tries to reason with herself about a recent breakup by asking questions her deep psyche probably knows the answers to. Delivered by a younger artist it makes perfect sense, and Aaliyah's vocals contain such restrained pain that she didn't need to go the showstopper route. The lyrics aren't saying anything new, but she does sell it for something new to her, especially potent consider her, ahem, history (freaking R. Kelly)...
"The One I Gave My Heart To" became Aaliyah's third top ten pop hit in November of 1997. The song also climbed to #8 on Billboard's R&B chart. There was a bunch of dance reinventions of the song (common in that era with ballads) which led to it climbing the Dance Club Play tally to #18. Internationally, the single made the top-40 in New Zealand (#28) and the UK, where the "double-sided" single with "Hot Like Fire" peaked at #30.
(6.5/10)
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The original album version of the song was produced by LA Reid/Babyface protege Daryl Simmons, and sounds a bit different, a bit more cold and electronic in production...
The other cut on the single, "Hot Like Fire", was the prime listed cut on the British single, as well as getting to #31 on the R&B Airplay chart. With Timbaland's recognizable production, the midtempo song is a good contrast to the ballad...
Here's the singer performing "The One I Gave My Heart To" on the Keenan Ivory Wayans show...
And lastly, Aaliyah performing the song live with Diane Warren in 1997...
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