Robbed hit of the week 12/12/21 - 98 Degrees' "This Gift"...

 

 

"This Gift" - 98 Degrees

from the album This Christmas (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #49

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from the pop vocal "boy-band" 98 Degrees, whose second album 98 Degrees and Rising scored three top-40 pop hits with "Because Of You", "The Hardest Thing", and "I Do (Cherish You)".  Just about the year after the release of that album, the group put out a holiday set, This Christmas, as their third studio album. A new song from the set, "This Gift", was promoted to radio as a single, and became a rare pop "holiday" hit of that era. Written by Anders Bagge, Anthor Biggisson, Dane Deviller, and Sean Hosein, The track follows the boy-band template, slipping in Christmas words to make it relevant to the season...

While "This Gift" did pretty well on the radio, getting to #14 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, and #20 on the Mainstream Pop Airplay list, the song stopped right above the halfway mark on the Hot 100 in December of 1999. Internationally, the single went to #25 in Canada. The This Christmas album, released in October of 1999, got to #27 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a million copies.

(5/10)

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Here's the group performing live to a studio audience...

 

 In 2002, German group Bro'Sis released a cover of "This Gift" as a single from their album Never Forget. Their version made the top-40 in Germany (#16) and Austria (#40)...

Back to 98 Degrees appearing on The Tonight Show...