Songoftheday 8/30/22 -The daylight's fading slowly but time with you is standing still, I'm waiting for you only the slightest touch and I feel weak...

 

 

"Breathless" - The Corrs

from the album In Blue (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #34 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 6

 

Today's song comes from the Corrs, an Irish indie rock band made of three sisters - Andrea, Caroline, and Sharon Corr along with their guitar-playing brother Jim.  Hailing from the city if Dundalk near the border with Northern Ireland, the family played at local pubs until they landed roles in the rock movie The Commitments in 1991 and played a couple of high-profile sporting gigs in America before touring with Celine Dion in the mid 1990s. They were signed to producer David Foster's vanity imprint 143 on Atlantic Records, and he and Jim produced the group's debut album Forgiven, Not Forgotten. Released in 1995, the album's lead single "Runaway" reached the top ten in their Irish home as well as Australia, while making it on to the radio in the U.S., climbing to #68 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart as well as #20 on the Adult Contemporary radio list. Another cut from the record, "The Right Time", popped onto the older-skewing Adult Top-40 airplay chart in Billboard at #37 while "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #112. The album peaked at #131 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a half-million copies.

 

The band returned in 1997 with their sophomore effort Talk On Corners. The album went to #1 in Ireland, but initially did more modestly elsewhere. Lead single "Only When I Sleep", co-produced by the group with Oliver Lieber, again hit #10 in Ireland, but the UK still wasn't biting, with that and two follow-ups stalling on the bottom half of the British singles chart. During that time, the siblings recorded a cover of Fleetwood Mac's classic song "Dreams" for a tribute album released that same year. Their remake was released as a single, where it was "Missing-ed" (in reference to Everything But The Girl), remixed by Todd Terry into a club banger, which propelled the song into the top ten on the British singles chart at #6. That success caused 143 to re-release the Talk On Corners album with more remixed tracks, catching fire in Britain as it became the biggest-selling album of the year there. Three more songs made the UK top ten in remixes form, with "What Can I Do" reaching #3, "So Young" going to #6, and a re-work of their debut single "Runaway", which originally stopped at #49 in the UK, this time climbing to #2. The album went to #72 on the American Billboard 200, selling over a half-million again. The Corrs filmed an episode of MTV's Unplugged for the European market, and it was a top ten hit album all across the continent, with a second #1 in Ireland. 

In the summer of 2000, The Corrs released their third album In Blue. Instead of continuing down the nerd-dance trail that Everything But The Girl followed, the band hired indie-rock icon Mitchell Froom to produce the record. His work with Crowded House and then-wife Suzanne Vega is audible in the course of the album, though three of the single were produced and co-written by Robert "Mutt" Lange (Shania Twain, Def Leppard), and his heavy-handed stamp is all over them. This includes the first single from the set, "Breathless", which the siblings wrote with Lange. It sounds like a Shania toss-off, with the wall of sound guitar rush and harmonies that whoosh in and out of the record. Lange's influence is also heard in the lyrics, where simple statements of carnal desire get cooed by the sisters and rhyming doesn't matter. But it sounds great, especially on the radio, especially driving with the windows down, and I guess that's what was needed for the Corrs to break through in America, with their update on the Wilson Phillips sound of a decade ago. In the record as well as the video, the Irish influences (as well as brother Jim) are mostly hidden in the background, and you'd never guess that they were a Celtic rock band unless you were told...

"Breathless" may have had them selling their soul, but it worked, granting the family their first and only top-40 hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in April of 2001. On the radio, the song went to #22 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, #7 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, and #14 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") airplay list. Internationally, the song topped the British singles chart in July of the previous year, as well as in the Czech Republic, and reached the top ten in Italy (#2), Romania (#2), Ireland (#3), New Zealand (#3), Portugal (#3), Spain (#5), Sweden (#5), Australia (#7), and Austria (#10). The In Blue album, released in July of 2000, peaked at #21 on the Billboard 200 sales tally (their highest rank), going on to sell over a million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2001, "Breathless" was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Vocal Performance, losing to Steely Dan's comeback on "Cousin Dupree". Another album track, "Rebel Heart", was also up for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, which went to the Brian Setzer Orchestra for his neo-swing "Caravan".

Internationally, after the success of "Breathless", the follow-up single was "Irresistible", another Lange-produced track, which had a weird early-80s Fixx-style new-wave style, and got to #8 in New Zealand, #20 in the United Kingdom, and #30 in Ireland. Then came "Give Me A Reason", which was written and produced solely by the siblings, but was remixed a la "Dreams" for the single release, where it stopped at #13 in New Zealand and #27 in the UK. Meanwhile, in the States, after "Breathless" ran its course, a different Lange-produced song, "All The Love In The World", was offered as the second American single. Despite exposure in the rom-com movie America's Sweethearts, the single only placed at #24 at Adult Contemporary radio, missing the pop Hot 100 altogether.

Instead of coming right back with another album, The Corrs, (now on Lava after the closure of 143 Records) released a Best Of The Corrs album internationally, then in the US and Ireland put out a live set, VH1 Presents The Corrs: Live In Dublin, which got to #52 on the Billboard 200. In that concert U2 lead singer Bono joined the band for "When The Stars Go Blue", a remake of an indie-rock nugget by Ryan Adams, which rose to #18 on Billboard's Adult Top-40 radio chart and #11 on the Adult Album Alternative (or "triple A") Rock format. Also from the live album came "Would You Be Happier?", which popped on to the Adult Contemporary airplay list for a week at #30. That song, which was originally a bonus on the international Best Of in its studio form, hit #10 in New Zealand, #14 in the UK, and #26 in Ireland. 

The siblings finally came back with a new studio album, Borrowed Heaven, on Atlantic Records proper in 2004. It was their last charting set on the Billboard 200 in America at #51, while single "Summer Sunshine", produced by Olle Romo from Sweden, stopped at #29 on the Adult Contemporary chart and #32 on the Adult Top-40 list on American Radio. It did better internationally, reaching the top 40 in Spain (#2), Belgium (#5W/#46F), the United Kingdom (#6), Ireland (#12), Australia (#13), Italy (#17), the Netherlands (#20), New Zealand (#30), Switzerland (#32), and Romania (#37). But their sound by then was full-on Wilson Phillips, though it scored two more top-40 hits in the UK and Ireland with "Angel" (#16 UK/#19 Ireland) and "Long Night" (#31 UK/#31 Ireland), both of which weren't as brash. A second album on Atlantic, Home, quickly followed in 2005, but while it hit #1 on the Irish album charts, and #14 in Britain, it failed to deliver any hit singles, with the double-sided single "Heart Like A Wheel" and "Old Town", making their most recent minor chart appearance in the UK (#68) and Ireland (#49). 

After Home, the Corrs took a break as a band, with Andrea and Sharon each putting out solo albums in the 2000s. Andrea's Ten Feet High reached the top-40 on the British Albums chart at #38 in 2007, while Sharon got to #37 in 2010 with Dream Of You, with single "It's Not A Dream" making the Irish top-40 at #29. 

The Corrs reunited in 2015, releasing White Light on EastWest Records with the promo single "Bring On The Night". The album got to #10 in Ireland and #11 in the UK. Their most recent studio album, Jupiter Calling, came out in 2017 on the same label, and made the top 20 in the UK (#15) and Ireland (#20). 

(8/10)

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Here's the band performing at the Prince's Trust concert in 2000 as the single was being released that summer...

Next up on their own concert in London that same year...

This is the version on their 2002 Live In Dublin album that hit the American Billboard 200...

and finally, in Hyde Park London in 2015...

Up tomorrow: This cloudless neo-soul songstress is tired of the repetition.