Songoftheday 8/10/22 -There you are In a darkened room, and you're all alone looking out the window...

 

 

"Nobody Wants To Be Lonely" - Ricky Martin with Christina Aguilera

from the album Sound Loaded (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 top-40 peak: #13 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 13

 

Today's song comes from Ricky Martin, who led the Latin Explosion of 1999 with his self-titled first English-language album. Hoping to capitalize on this, he returned the following year with the totally laughable "She Bangs", which missed the top ten at the close of 2000 (and to be honest, I was surprised it did even that well). To rebound from that, Columbia released a duet with one of the biggest stars of that time, Christina Aguilera, as the second single promoted to radio. "Nobody Wants To Be Lonely", written by song doctor Desmond Child, Victoria Shaw (a prolific country music writer), and Gary Burr, was originally on the Sound Loaded album as a solo track. The song is pretty basic, with Ricky offering up his own body to a lonely "girl", but the argument he's making boils down to "you should just get with me because you don't know if you'll get anybody else". Ick. The production from Walter Afanasieff (who had been shunned by Mariah Carey at that point) is slick and interesting, and the pair give their best to give good vocals, but the result is creepy when it isn't bland. Even the music video is telling, with the two of them separated in most of the shots (even when their both on the screen), and the brief moment they're embracing it feels more like BFF's having a kiki than a torrid romance...

"Nobody Wants To Be Lonely" did nearly match the peak of "She Bangs" on Billboard magazine's Hot 100, most likely for Christina's fans, while Columbia again stupidly held back a single and instead tacked the duet version to a re-release of Sound Loaded. I'm sure this kept the song from the top ten, since there were no sales of the song as well as the fact that not as many fans were willing to re-buy the album than they thought. On the radio, the song spent four weeks at #3 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, while getting to #8 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay list, #20 at the dance-oriented Rhythmic format, and #27 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 radio panel. Internationally, the single did a bit better, going to #1 in Poland, Hungary, Romania, New Zealand, and Croatia, and made the top ten in Italy (#2), Spain (#2), Switzerland (#2), Greece (#2), Sweden (#3), the United Kingdom (#4), the Netherlands (#4), Finland (#4), Germany (#5), Norway (#5), Portugal (#5), Canada (#6), Denmark (#6), and Australia (#8). At the Grammy Awards in 2002, "Nobody Wants To Be Lonely" was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Collaboration, losing to, well, Christina Aguilera herself for her remake of "Lady Marmalade" with Pink, Mya, and Lil' Kim. 

A third single from Sound Loaded was semi-title track "Loaded", written by 90s hitmaker Jon Secada with Draco Rosa and George Noriega. Despite trying to recapture the Latin feel of his last album, it stopped all the way down at #97 on the Hot 100, though it managed to make the top-40 in Romania (#10), Sweden (#14), Belgium (#15), Spain (#18), The United Kingdom, and Italy (#22). Sad, since it was the most entertaining of the three. 

 

At the beginning of 2003, Ricky Martin recorded a cover of the disco classic "Relight My Fire" from Dan Hartman. Originally meant to be a duet with American international star Anastacia, However Hex Hector and Mac Quayle changed the production to drop Anastacia for Loleatta Holloway's original vocals, and the record was oddly released only as a promotional disc for dance club DJ's under just the name "Martin". It went to #5 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart, but I totally don't understand why this was shelved the way it was (let alone not having Anastacia's vocals on there).

Instead of delivering another English album, Ricky returned later that year with a Spanish-language disc, Almas del Silencio ("Souls Of The Silence"). The album made it to #12 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, a big feat at the time for a Latin album, but it sold far less than even Sound Loaded, not reaching a half million copies that would give him a gold record. Lead single "Tal Vez" ("Perhaps") topped the Latin Songs chart in Billboard, but would stall at #74on the "pop" Hot 100. Another cut from the disc, "Jaleo", was remixed for the clubs, and made #13 on Billboard's Dance chart. 

By the time Martin came back with his next mainstream English-language record, Life, in 2005, unfortunately his momentum seemed to have left, as the Latin Explosion just assimilated into the pop music scene. The album came in at #6 on the Billboard 200, but again failed to go gold. The first single from the set, "I Don't Care", was meant to be his comeback, including rapper Fat Joe and singer Amerie on the record, but it stopped down at #65 on the Hot 100 (and #49 on the pop airplay list), though it did manage to climb to #3 on the Dance Club Play chart, and just missed the top ten in the UK at #11. A year later, Ricky recorded a live album on the MTV Unplugged series, which hit a respectable #38 on the Billboard 200. A track from the concert, "Tu Recuerdo" featuring Spanish singer La Mari, topped the Latin Songs chart.

The next stage of Ricky's life and career came in 2010 when he publicly came out as gay to his fans on his website. Doing something like that as an established artist, espectially one with a history of music meant to "romance the ladies", was extremely risky, but thankfully he came through it, though one has to admit its hard to tell if it affected his pop radio career since that was already waning by that time. He was starring on Broadway in the musical Evita, and when it came time for his next studio album Martin went back to his Latin roots for Musica + Alma + Sexo in 2011. The record spent a week at #3 on the Billboard 200, but only eight weeks on the list in total. The song "The Best Thing About Me Is You" with Joss Stone, a re-recorded English version of the #1 Latin Songs hit "Lo Mejor De Mi Vida Eres Tu" (which had Natalia Jimenez), peaked at #74 on the pop Hot 100 in 2010, his most recent appearance as a lead artist. 

Ricky appeared on the musical television show Glee in 2012, and two of his performances on the show made the Hot 100, "Sexy and I Know It" (#81) and "La Isla Bonita" (#99). The following year, he put out a stand-alone dance single, "Come With Me", which climbed to #4 on the Dance Club Play chart. Martin also was on the judging panel for the singing competition The Voice in Australia for years starting in 2013. He also was featured on reggaeton star Wisin's "Adrenalina" with Jennifer Lopez in 2014, which popped on to the Hot 100 at #94 (his most recent time as a featured guest). His next studio album A Quien Quiera Escuchar (To Those Who Want To Listen) arrived in 2015, and with it Ricky won his second Grammy Award, this time for Best Latin Pop Album. The set peaked at #20 on the Billboard 200. He also put out a separate English-language dance track, "Mr. Put It Down", with Cuban-American rapper Pitbull, which spent a week at #1 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart. 

The second half of the 2010s saw the singer releasing sporadic singles, with 2016's "Vente Pa' Ca" (Come Here) with Maluma going to #4 on the Hot Latin Songs chart. Ricky's next studio release, the "extended play" set Pausa, came out in 2020, and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Latin Pop or Urban Album, losing to "Latin Trap" king Bad Bunny's set YHLQMDLG. That was followed by the non-album single "Cancion Bonita" with Carlos Vives, which hit #23 on the Latin Songs chart, as well as this year by the extended EP Play.  

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 The Spanish-language version of the song, "Solo Quiero Amarte", went to #1 on the Latin Songs, Latin Pop Airplay, and Tropical Latin Airplay charts...

 

Here's Ricky and Xtina performing the song on the British TV show CD:UK...

And lastly, at the World Music Awards in 2001...

Up tomorrow: This Boston blues-rock band has been places.