Robbed hit of the week 4/10/23 - iiO's "Rapture (Tastes So Sweet)"...

"Rapture (Tastes So Sweet)" - iiO

from the album Poetica (2005)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #46 (two weeks)

This week's "robbed hit" comes from the duo iiO, who came together in New York City at the beginning of the 2000s. The act featured Libyan-born singer Nadia Ali and Austrian musician and producer Markus Moser. Their first single together would be their first taste of international success with "Rapture (Tastes So Sweet)". With lyrics written by Ali and the music by Moser, the lyrics are the usual falling into ecstasy with a guy picked up at a club, but what made the record stand out wasn't the beat or the groove but the melody, which was vaguely Arabic. The result made the song elevate itself over the thump thump club music of the time, and found a home on radio, enough to make the pop charts in Billboard magazine.

"Rapture" peaked not far above the halfway mark on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in March of 2002. On the radio, the song rose to #17 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart and #27 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic format. The remixes of the song helped it spend two weeks at #2 on the Dance Club Play tally. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in the United Kingdom (#2), Romania (#2), Australia (#3), Portugal (#3), Greece (#3), Canada (#4), New Zealand (#8), Ireland (#9), Denmark (#10), and Hungary (#10). It also hit the top-40 in Spain (#12), Finland (#12), the Czech Republic (#18), Belgium (#21 Flanders/#28 Wallonia), Sweden (#25), and the Netherlands (#34).

The second single from the record was "At The End", which was a modest hit overseas, reaching the top 40 in Portugal (#10), Finland (#13), Denmark (#16), the UK (#20), and Romania (#37), but only made it to #41 on the American Dance Club chart, since it wasn't released here and charted as an import single, but despite it not showing on the Hot 100, it came in at #6 on Billboard's brand-new Dance Airplay radio chart. That was followed by "Smooth", which made it to #23 on that list in 2004, as well as going all the way to #2 in Finland, which also sent another song, "Runaway", up to #4.

The duo finally released their album Poetica in the spring of 2005, and the U.S. got the single "Kiss You" along with it to promote the track. The song brought the pair back to the Dance Club Play chart at #3 (as well as #5 in Finland). That was topped by "Is It Love?", which topped the Club Play list for a week in October of 2006. A rework of "Rapture" in 2007 took the duo almost to where it peaked the first time at #3 on the Dance Club chart, but it would be their last together, as Nadia left to pursue a solo career.

After working as a featured vocalists on a couple projects, Ali released her first solo single "Crash And Burn" in 2008, which peaked at #6 on the Dance Club Play chart. Her follow-up, "Love Story", went all the way to #1 on that list in April of the next year. A third top ten dance hit in America, "Fine Print", came in the summer before the release of her first album Embers. In 2010, Nadia released a trio of remix albums of both her iiO hits and solo successes. From it, a rework of "Rapture", helped by a remix by EDM star Avicii, slipped into the British top-40 at #40, and rose to #3 in Romania. A year later, a collaboration with production teams Starkillers along with Alex Kenji, "Pressure", placed at #4 on Billboard's Dance Airplay chart.

Meanwhile, Moser started the iiO name back up and released a second album, Exit 110, in which he re-appropriated vocals from Ali from their earlier years without her involvement. More recently, Nadia adopted the moniker HYLLS and released a series of singles with an album Once arriving in 2019.

(7/10)

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Here's the original remix from Creamer and Stephane K that helped "Rapture" rise to the runner up spot on the dance chart back in 2002...