Songoftheday 4/8/22 - When you feel all alone and the world has turned its back on you, give me a moment please to tame your wild, wild heart...

 

 

"Crash and Burn" - Savage Garden

from the album Affirmation (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #24 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 9

 

Today's song comes from the Australian pop duo Savage Garden, who followed up the first single from their second album Affirmation, "The Animal Song", with their second #1 pop hit "I Knew I Loved You" in the beginning of 2000. The third single from the record was "Crash and Burn", written by the act's Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones, who both co-produced the track with Walter Afanasieff. The song has Hayes singing assurances that he'll be your rock in troubled times, and allow you to flame out, as it were, and catch you as you fall. It's love promises made all the time in songs, as the offer of being the "rebound" is strong in this one. The production is dense and nuanced for a pop song in that area. The music video is something else, though, going from a exploration of emotional troubles to a seeming acid-induced fever dream of sci-fi effects to Darren using sign language for the end chorus...

"Crash And Burn" became Savage Garden's sixth and final top-40 pop hit in the U.S. in May of 2000. The song rose to #10 on Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, and #13 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format list, spending a half a year on both. Internationally, the single reached the top 40 in Canada (#12), the UK (#14), Belgium (#15F), Australia (#16), New Zealand (#19), Iceland (#22), and Sweden (#28).

The album title track "Affirmation" was actually released internationally as the third single in January of that year, but not in America since "I Knew I Loved You" was so overwhelmingly popular that they had to wait it out. The track reached the top ten in the UK (#8) and #16 in their homeland Australia. After "Crash and Burn" was released, the guitar pop that had the opposite lyrical content, "Chained To You", was offered as the fifth single in Australia, where it peaked at #21. "Hold Me" followed, which got a better reception worldwide, making the top-40 in the UK (#16), New Zealand (#13), and Ireland (#31). Lastly, "The Best Thing" became the sixth top-40 British hit from the album at #35 in 2001. 

 

Later that year, however, the duo decided to split, with Daniel Jones going behind the scenes in the business while Darren Hayes embarked on a solo career. In 2002, he released his first solo record Spin, which was a top ten success in the UK, Australia, and Sweden, while reaching #35 on the Billboard 200 sales tally in America. Lead single "Insatiable" topped the singles chart in New Zealand, made the top ten in Australia (#3) and the UK (#8), and popped on to the pop Hot 100 in the U.S. at #77, while reaching #16 on the Adult Contemporary and #33 on the Adult Top-40 radio lists in this country. It even did something Savage Garden didn't - reach the American dance chart at #11. With his sophomore solo effort, The Tension and the Spark, Hayes managed to top Billboard's Dance Club Play chart with "Pop!ular", which also hit #3 in Australia. 

Hayes came out of the closet to the world in 2006, when a new cut recorded by Darren for a Savage Garden hits set, "So Beautiful" , hit the American Adult Contemporary chart at #27, while reaching #7 in Australia. A third album, This Delicate Thing We've Made, arrived in 2007, with the single "Step Into The Light" landing a third club hit in the U.S. for Hayes at #5. Another track from the record, "On The Verge Of Something Wonderful", was his most recent trip into the top 40 in Australia and the UK.

 

After a fourth and so far last full-length solo set Secret Codes and Battleships came out in 2011, Darren took a break from the music business for a full decade, emerging this year with a new single "Let's Try Being In Love".  His newest single is "Do You Remember" which came out in March of 2022.

(7/10)

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Here's Darren and Daniel performing the song on the Donny & Marie talk show...

Next up, on their concert tour behind the album...

And lastly, Darren performing solo in 2005...

Up tomorrow: Gospel duo break the chains that bind.