Songoftheday 6/12/22 - When the visions around you bring tears to your eyes, and all that surrounds you are secrets and lies...

 

 

"This I Promise You" - *NSYNC

from the album No Strings Attached (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 23

 

Today's song comes from the boyband *NSYNC, whose third studio album No Strings Attached had already sold millions and spun off two huge pop hits with "Bye Bye Bye" and "It's Gonna Be Me", with the latter hitting #1 on the Billboard magazine Hot 100 in the summer of 2000. The third and final single in the U.S. from the album was the ballad "This I Promise You", written and produced by late 1980's hitmaker Richard Marx. Like the usual boy-band ballad, its full of platitudes about "being there" for her, promising her forever, even though in young love that often is just a ruse. But hey, it worked on their audience, even with the cheesiest music video which somehow finds them lipsynching singing at an outside restaurant table sitting down with food. Marx produces his song well, but it's so milquetoast it's like wedding background music...

"This I Promise You" became the third top ten pop hit from No Strings Attached in December of 2000. The song was massive at "easy listening" radio, spending thirteen weeks at #1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary format chart (their sole #1), while getting to #27 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 radio list. Internationally, the single made the top ten in Spain (#7) and Canada (#8), and reached the top-40 in Sweden (#12), Belgium (#18W/#43F), the UK (#21), New Zealand (#32), Ireland (#36), Germany (#37), and Switzerland (#40).

A fourth track from No Strings Attached, "I'll Never Stop", was released as the second single from the album in some countries. The Max Martin co-write made the top-40 in the Czech Republic (#11), the UK (#13), Belgium (#17W/#44F), Sweden (#20), Germany (#23), the Netherlands (#28), Switzerland (#31), and Ireland (#32). NSYNC will be back to the series.

(4/10)

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Here's NSYNC performing the song on a TV appearance promoting the single...

Next up, on their tour behind the No Strings Attached album in 2000...

The group sang "This I Promise You" at the Grammys in 2001...

They brought it out again on their PopOdyssey tour...

And lastly, JC Chasez singing "This I Promise You" with the song's writer/producer Richard Marx...

Up tomorrow: This rapper keeps it confidential.