Songoftheday 6/16/21 - From the first day that I saw your smiling face, honey I knew that we would be together forever...

 

 

"I'll Never Break Your Heart" - Backstreet Boys

from the albums Backstreet Boys (International and US Editions) (1996 & 1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #4 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 20

 

Today's song of the day comes from the Backstreet Boys, who had already scored a trio of top ten airplay hits with "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)", "As Long As You Love Me", and "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)", the latter reaching its high in the spring of 1998. The next song from the boy-band promoted to radio in the U.S. was originally their second single overseas, "I'll Never Break Your Heart". Written by Eugene Wilde, who had topped Billboard magazine's R&B chart twice in the mid-80s with "Gotta Get You Home Tonight" and "Don't Say No Tonight", along with Albert Manno, the track was the standard love promise ballad, as the Boys vow to never leave their lovers (as they do). Produced by German Velt Renn and American Timmy Allen, the latter who helmed Stephanie Mills' #1 R&B hit "You're Puttin' A Rush On Me", the song had the soul receipts, but the lily-white nature of the group veered it to the young teen market with a twinge of Boyz II Men inspiration watered down a lot...

Since "I'll Never Break Your Heart" wasn't commercially released as a retail single in America, it wasn't able to place on Billboard's official Hot 100 pop chart, However, the track got enough radio spins to reach the top five on the airplay component of that tally in September of 1998. The song was massive on "easy listening" radio, topping Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart for seven weeks, and getting to #28 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format list. Internationally, where as mentioned it was the second single from their self-titled debut, it made the top ten in Switzerland (#2), The Netherlands (#3), Belgium (#4F/#8W), Germany (#5), Austria (#5), Sweden (#7), the UK (#8), and Australia (#10). 

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On its earlier European release, the original music video had the Boys skiing with their loves...

 

 Next up, appearing up MTV Live acappella to sing it much better than on the actual record...

Here's the Boys live in concert in Chile in 1998...

and finally from a show at the O2 Arena in London in 2008...

Up tomorrow: Charleston bar-band rockers are pretty patient.