Songoftheday 2/1/23 - Don't pretend you're sorry I know you're not, you know you've got the power to make me weak inside...
"Drowning" - Backstreet Boys
from the album The Hits - Chapter One (2001)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #28 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5
Today's song comes from the Backstreet Boys, whose fourth studio album Black & Blue had sold a million and a half copies in just its first week, and spawned a top ten lead single with "Shape Of My Heart" and a top-40 hit on the third try, "More Than That". But despite some big numbers on the front end, the record was a step down success-wise from their previous set, and record companies being record companies, saw the writing on the wall that acts like these have short shelf lives and against the will of the boyband put together a greatest hits package, with the ever-optimistic "Chapter One" on it. Along with all their pop hits in America, one new song was added, one originally written for the Black & Blue album but didn't make the cut. "Drowning" was a ballad written by Swedish producer Rami Yacoub with Andreas Carlsson and Linda Thompson, the latter a veteran songwriter who had been involved with Elvis and married to Bruce Jenner (they had two sons) as well as David Foster. The song is your typical Hallmark movie theme fare in its production, though the lyrics get quite a bit clingy and desperate. It draws the analogy of being literally swept in love as being swept away by water, including one of the most cringy verses of that year...
Go on and pull me underCover me with dreams, yeahLove me mouth to mouth nowYou know I can't resist'Cause you're the air that I breathe
"Mouth to mouth"? Really? On the positive side, the fivesome give their all to the vocals, and each one gets a turns on lead on either the verses, the pre-choruses or the bridge. Anyway the audience of now older women fans approved, though not with the numbers from before, and the Boys at least made it back into the top-40...
"Drowning" became the Backstreet Boys' eleventh top-40 hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart (not counting their many airplay-only hits) in November of 2001. On the radio, the song made it to #12 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, #40 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, and #6 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") station panel. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in Sweden (#3), Portugal (#3), the United Kingdom (#4), Denmark (#4), Belgium (#4 Wallonia/#20 Flanders), Spain (#5), Norway (#5), Austria (#9), Italy (#10), Ireland (#10), Romania (#10), and Finland (#10). The Hits - Chapter One, released in October of that year, peaked at #4 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell almost two million copies. The Backstreet Boys will be back to the series.
(4/10)
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There was an alternative version of the music video filmed with them literally being CGI swept away by water, hence "The Wet Version"...
Here's the Boys performing the song on The Early Show...
and lastly, live in concert...
Up tomorrow: This R&B trio likes the sweet stuff.
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