Robbed hit of the week 5/1/23 - Cher's "Song For The Lonely"...
"Song For The Lonely" - Cher
from the album Living Proof (2002)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #85 (two weeks)
This week's "robbed hit" comes from Cher, who had made an incredible comeback in the spring of 1999 when her single "Believe" from the album of the same name went to #1 on the American pop chart as well as around the world. The following year the icon released not.commercial, a record shelved by her former record company, independently through her website.
Cher's next proper studio album, Living Proof, arrived in 2002 in America (after the previous fall release in Europe), and it definitely was meant to be a carbon copy of Believe. The lead American single from the set was "Song For The Lonely", written by Mark Taylor, Paul Barry, and Steve Torch, three of the men behind the writing and production of "Believe". Meant as an homage to the resiliency of New York City after the attacks on 9/11, the song's lyrics themselves are generic to the point to detach any connection to that, but be an adaptable anthem that will get people out on the dance floor. The music video, however, doesn't take that route, and wallows in the NYC patriotic fervor albeit with the gayest of touches...
While "Song For The Lonely" climbed to #38 on Billboard magazine's Mainstream Top-40 radio chart, and #7 on the Hot 100 Singles sales list, it just didn't have enough overall radio presence to balance it, and stalled all the way down at #85 on the main Hot 100 in April of 2002. On the radio, it also made it to #11 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") airplay list, and #31 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format. Internationally, the single went to #18 in Canada, but wasn't really a hit much elsewhere (perhaps the whole 9/11 thing soured it). The Living Proof album, released in February of that year in the U.S., went to #9 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a half million copies.
When the Living Proof album was released in Europe the previous November, the single "The Music's No Good Without You"
was released as the first single, and made the top ten in Italy (#4), Spain (#8), and the
UK (#8), and eventually rose to #19 on the American Dance Club Play
list. That was followed by a pair of #1 dance hits in the U.S. with "A Different Kind Of Love Song" (two weeks) and "When The Money's Gone", with the former also going to #30 on the Adult Contemporary radio chart. "Love One Another",
the "B-side" of the latter and a remake of the club hit from Swedish
dance-pop singer Amber, was nominated for a Grammy for Best Dance
Recording in 2004, losing out to Kylie Minogue's "Come Into My World".
The tour behind the record, Living Proof: The Farewell Tour, was massive, raking in hundreds of millions (and nefariously tainting the "farewell" tour concept for good).
(8/10)
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And lastly, at the American Music Awards...
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