Songoftheday 5/28/21 - So gather up your jackets move it to the exits, I hope you have found a friend...
from the album Feeling Stranglely Fine (1998)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #11 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 29
Today's song of the day comes from the band Semisonic, who came together in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the mid-1990s. Lead singer/guitarist Dan Wilson and bassist John Munson, who were previously in the local band Trip Shakespeare, teamed up with drummer Jacob Slichter to form the trio and independently released an EP before being signed to MCA Records. Their debut album Great Divide came out in 1996, and from it the single "F.N.T." made the Mainstream Rock radio chart in Billboard magazine at #30, helped by its inclusion in the hit teen-movie 10 Thing I Hate About You, an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming Of The Shrew.
It would be their second effort, however, that would bring the group their biggest success. In 1998, they returned with Feeling Strangely Fine, with the track "Closing Time" promoted to pop and rock radio. Written by Wilson, the song paints a picture of the end of a night at the bar, but the inspiration was supposedly his girlfriend and his expected childbirth, and the end of a period evolving into a new age. Nevertheless, most people took it for the literal meaning, and it became a big radio hit. The music video, which features a double continuous shot, was pretty striking for MTV viewers...
Since "Closing Time" wasn't released commercially as a retail single (most likely to boost album sales), it wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official Hot 100 pop chart. However, the song got enough radio love to just miss the top ten on the airplay component of the tally in August of 1998. The song spent five weeks at #1 on Billboard's Alternative Rock radio chart, and also getting to #13 on the Mainstream Rock list. It even climbed to #4 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format chart, hanging around for 31 weeks. Internationally, the single reached #25 in the UK. The Feeling Strangely Fine album, released in March of that year, peaked at #43 on the Billboard 200 sales list, going on to move over a million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 1999, "Closing Time" was nominated for Best Rock Song, losing out to Alanis Morissette's "Uninvited".
The band followed up with "Singing In My Sleep", which became a decent rock radio hit, reaching #11 on the Alternative Rock chart and #31 at Mainstream Rock stations, but didn't catch on with pop airwaves, possibly due to the slow burnout of the previous hit. (It did reach the top-40 in the UK at #39.) The third offering, "Secret Smile", became the trio's biggest British hit at #12, where it was released before "Closing Time". In America, the song went to #35 at the Adult Top-40 format, and #21 on Alternative Rock radio, and was their sole hit in Canada at #30.
In 2001, Semisonic returned with their third full-length album All About Chemistry. Lead single "Chemistry" hit #31 at Adult Top-40, #39 at Alternative Rock radio, and climbed into the top-40 in New Zealand (#21), the UK (#35), and Ireland (#39). The album spent a couple of weeks on the Billboard 200 list with a high of #104. After this, the band was put to rest, with Wilson releasing a couple solo albums, before reuniting in 2020. The title track to their EP "You're Not Alone" climbed to #14 on Billboard's Triple-A (Adult Album Alternative) Rock format.
(9/10)
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Next up, the trio live in concert at Pinkpop in the Netherlands in 2001...
and lastly, for a radio stint in 2020...
Up tomorrow: R&B singer has a christening evening.
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