Songoftheday 4/20/21 - Love sometimes can be like destiny, there's no way to say forever it may not realize your dreams...
"Heaven's What I Feel" - Gloria Estefan
from the album Gloria! (1998)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #27 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 8
Today's song of the day is from Gloria Estefan, whose 1996 album Reach had high hopes tying in to the Olympic Games in Atlanta with the title track, but seeing that miss the top-40 and followup "I'm Not Giving You Up" barely making that mark at #40 at the start of 1997. A year later, Estefan returned with her eighth solo studio album gloria!, aiming straight for the gays with a collection of disco nuggets, some with Latin flair, all designed for club consumption with not a ballad in there. The lead single was the jubilant "Heaven's What I Feel", written by Kike Santander, who co-produced the track with Gloria's husband Emilio Estefan. With swirling production and heart-thumping beat, Gloria sings about a love that shouldn't be (a common theme in the LGBT world) as she and the object of her love are already attached. But instead of sounding guilty or remorseful, she is absolutely celebratory on the budding romance, and even if it would never come to full fruition, their presence sends her to the stars. It's an absolute banger of a track, and a great centerpiece of a album that foreshadowed Cher's gay renaissance with Believe...
"Heaven's What I Feel" became Gloria's ninth top-40 pop hit apart from the Miami Sound Machine in June of 1998. The single also rose to #10 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary radio chart, spending half a year (26 weeks) on the list. The club remixes of the track, done by the likes of Love To Infinity and Victor Calderone, helped it rise to #7 on the Dance Club Play tally as well. Internationally, the single was an big hit, reaching the top-40 in the Hungary (#3), UK (#17), Belgium (#30F), Australia (#34), and Switzerland (#38). The gloria! album, released in June as the single was peaking, got to #23 on the Billboard 200 sales chart in America, going on to sell over half a million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 1999, "Heaven's What I Feel" was nominated for Best Dance Recording, which she lost to Madonna for her unstoppable "Ray Of Light".
The next single from the album would be the salsa-disco of "Oye", which went to #1 on both the Dance Club Play and the Latin Tracks charts in Billboard. It also made the top-40 in Britain at #33. In Spain, the song "Cuba Libre" was put out as a single, and made the top ten there at #3. Lastly, the dramatic "Don't Let This Moment End", co-written by Gloria, was a minor hit in the States at #76, while climbing to #30 on the Adult Contemporary radio chart, and spent three weeks at #2 on the Dance Club Play tally. It made the British Top-40 at #28, and scored the singer her second consecutive Best Dance Recording Grammy nomination, which Cher took home for "Believe".
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The Spanish-language version of the song, "Corazon Prohibido", went to #2 on Billboard's Latin Tracks chart, and topped the singles list in Spain...
Here's the remix done by Victor Calderone that aided the song making the Dance chart top ten...
Next up, Estefan appearing on the Rosie O'Donnell Show...
...and on the World Music Awards in 1998...
and lastly, Gloria performing the song as a ballad for her A&E Live By Request episode in 1998...
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