Songoftheday 8/5/21 - Can this be true? Tell me, can this be real? How can I put into words what I feel?
from the album N SYNC (1997)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 17
Today's song comes from the boy-band NSYNC, whose debut album had spun off a pair of decent radio hits with "I Want You Back" and "Tearing Up My Heart", the latter of which was only able to scrape the lower half of the official Billboard magazine Hot 100 pop chart when they changed the rules allowing album cuts to place based on their radio popularity. The third release from the self-titled record, though, was put out as a commercial single, to capitalize on their fervent (and mostly teen girl) fanbase, with a remix different than the album to spurn sales. "(God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time On You", written and produced by the team of Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers, the duo behind the act Rythm Syndicate that had a huge #2 pop hit in 1991 with "P.A.S.S.I.O.N.", has absolutely none of the pseudo-funk that song attempted to have, but rather a generic wedding/graduation/quincenara/chastity ball-ready slow dance with greeting card lyrics and squeaky-clean intentions where a kiss is as far as they go. Of course the kids ate it up, and their parents approved the message, and with the sales boost the group found themselves with their first bona fide hit...
"(God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time On You" became NSYNC's first official Top-40 pop hit, and first top ten as well, reaching that level in February of 1999. The song was a huge hit on "easy listening" radio, spending seven weeks at #2 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary radio chart, while also going to #30 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format list. Internationally, the single climbed to #3 in Canada, and just missed the top-40 in Australia at #46.
A fourth American release from the album, "I Drive Myself Crazy", which also featured on their European holiday The Winter Album record, went to #67 in the U.S., which overseas it did a little better, reaching the top-40 in Canada (#16) and the Netherlands (#15). Meanwhile, in Germany, where their debut was released well ahead of their success in the States, three other songs reached the top-40 with "Here We Go" going all the way to #8, "For The Girl Who Has Everything" went to #32, and "Together Again", which didn't even make it on to the American version of the album, peaked at #31. NSYNC will of course be back to the series.
(4/10)
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Here's NSYNC performing this hit and "I Want You Back" live on the Rosie O'Donnell show...
Next up, for their concert on the Disney Channel in 1998...
Later in 1999, the country band Alabama covered the song for their eighteenth studio album Twentieth Century, and brought along NSYNC for added clout, and it worked, reviving their career, going to #3 on the Country Songs chart, and even making the pop top-40, making it a future Song of the Day itself...
Lastly, here's the boys at their peak on their No Strings Attached tour in 2000...
Up tomorrow: R&B singer also looks to the heavens for this #1 hit.
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