Songoftheday 1/12/22 - You'll never know what you've done for me, what your faith in me has done for my soul...
"Music Of My Heart" - Gloria Estefan & *NSYNC
from the album Music Of The Heart (Original Soundtrack) (1999)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5
Today's song of the day comes from Latin pop music titan Gloria Estefan, whose disco pastiche album gloria! had scored a top 40 pop hit in the summer of 1998 with "Heaven's What I Feel". Gloria started out the following year by performing at the halftime show at the Super Bowl for the second time in her career. Later in 1999, Estefan turned to acting, appearing in her first major film Music Of The Heart starring Meryl Streep (who was nominated for an Oscar) and Angela Bassett. A mostly forgotten movie, Streep plays a divorced mother who gets a job as a music teacher in New York City. Kieran Culkin, who now is famous for his current role on the TV show Succession, plays one of her sons, while Cloris Leachman plays her mother. Estefan plays another teacher in the school, while Bassett portrays the principal. Directed by horror film guru Wes Craven, this film was based on the real life of Roberta Guaspari. The accompanying soundtrack included songs from Aaliyah, Jennifer Lopez, and Julio Iglesias, Jr., but Estefan had the opening title track from the film. "Music Of My Heart", written by song doctor supreme Diane Warren and produced by David Foster, teamed Gloria up with one of the biggest pop acts of the time, boy-band *NSYNC, whose debut album sold close to ten million copies, and spun off three big hits with "I Want You Back", "Tearin' Up My Heart", and the top ten ballad "(God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time On You" at the start of 1999. The movie kind of stiffed at the box office, only making back half of its 27 million dollar budget, but NSYNC's fanbase made sure to grab up the single to catapult this to the top of the charts. As for the song itself, of course it's Warren's template Hallmark card lyrics, but Foster elevates it with the violin intro fitting with the movie, NSYNC's spot-on harmonies, which may be their best to date at the time, and Estefan's professional yet emotional delivery.
"Music Of My Heart" went all the way to the runner-up position on the American pop Hot 100 in October of 1999, though for a song going that high on the list it fell just as quickly, spending a paltry five weeks in the top-40 (though 20 weeks on the Hot 100). The song was big on "easy listening" radio, taking five weeks at #2 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary radio chart. Internationally, the single reached the top-40 in Spain (#11), Belgium (#16F), Canada (#30), and the UK (#34). The Music Of The Heart soundtrack album, released in September of that year, rose to #51 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a half million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2000, "Music Of My Heart" was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Collaboration, losing out to Santana and Rob Thomas' juggernaut "Smooth", and Best Song from a Movie/TV/Visual Media, which went to Madonna for her "Beautiful Stranger". The song was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards that same year, which went to Phil Collins for his Disney Tarzan track "You'll Be In My Heart".
In 2000, Gloria returned with her third Spanish-language solo album Alma Caribena, which peaked at #50 on the Billboard 200 and sold over a half-million copies. The lead single from the record, "No Me Dejes De Querer" ("Don't Stop Loving Me"), made the American Hot 100 at #77, her most recent solo appearance there, and topped Billboard's Latin Songs chart, while the dance remixes of the track helped it rise to #8 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Tropical Latin Album in 2001.
Also that year, Estefan put out her Greatest Hits Vol. II, with the song "Out Of Nowhere" going to #6 on the Dance Club Play chart, and earning Gloria her third Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording, which Janet Jackson took home for her "All For You". Her next "pop" album, Unwrapped, was released in 2003, and was her final record with longtime label Epic Records. The set spun off her two most recent radio hits on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format with "I Wish You" hitting #18 in 2004. The "title-ish" track "Wrapped" got to #23 at Adult Top-40, while its Spanish language counterpart, "Hoy", topped Billboard's Latin Songs chart, as did the album bonus cut "Tu Fotografia" ("Your Picture").
After another Spanish album 90 Millas on the Sony subsidary Burgundy Records which topped out at #25 on the Billboard 200, granting Gloria another Latin Songs #1 in "No Llores" in 2007. That song featured Carlos Santana on guitar, and "bubbled under" the Hot 100 chart at #117. Four years later, Gloria came back on Verve Forecast imprint with her most recent "pop" album, Little Miss Havana, which rose to #28 on the Billboard 200. Lead single "Wepa", topped Billboard's Dance Club Play chart, as did follow-up "Hotel Nacional", which also topped their Latin Songs list.
Estefan got on the "songbook" train with her 2013 album Standards, which is her most recent charting album on the Billboard 200 at #20. The set was nominated for Best Traditional Pop Album at the 2014 Grammys, losing to Michael Buble for his To Be Loved record. Her latest release, Brazil305, came out in the summer of 2020, and was remakes of her own work done in the various music styles of that titular country. While Gloria won't be back to the series on her own, she eventually will appear on the top-20 hit "Almost Like Praying" charity single in 2017 led by Lin-Manuel Miranda. As for NSYNC, they'll be back very soon.
(5/10)
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...and again on another award show...
Up tomorrow: This twilight rapper is taken.
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