Songoftheday 6/21/23 - You are still a whisper on my lips, a feeling at my fingertips that's pulling at my skin...

 

 

"Days Go By" - Dirty Vegas

from the album Dirty Vegas (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #14 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 9

 

Today's song comes from the British dance act Dirty Vegas, who came together in London in the beginning of the millennium.  Unrelated DJ and producers Ben and Paul Harris recruited singer Steve Smith for the "Dirty Vegas" project. Signed to Parlophone in the United Kingdom and Capitol Records in the U.S., the group released a debut single, "Days Go By" in the spring of 2001. Written by Smith with songwriter Victoria Horn, the track's lyrics are pretty sparse, with Smith dryly singing about a past failed love, with no verses, but rather alternating choruses that repeat over the most prominent part of the track, that throbbing bassline. The detachment in Smith's voice sets the mood of the piece awry, allowing you to just give in to the robotic rhythm of the music beneath it. In their native Britain's club-friendly pop music scene, the song did moderately decent, reaching the top-40 there in the May of 2001 (#27). However, the music video, featuring a pair of dancers (Byron McIntyre and Garland Spencer) portraying old and new versions of the same heartbroken man dancing in front of a diner, was downright iconic, and MTV did pick it up a little for their club-oriented shows.

It wasn't until the following year that the Mitsubishi car manufacturer licensed the song for the commercial for their Eclipse model, obviously more for the groove of the music than the lyrics. It was a huge success for the brand, and radio got in on the pre-internet buzz around the track (I remember buying the 12 inch single because I was so into it but it wasn't available on any commercial format at first). With the airplay on the song, "Days Gone By" became a pop radio hit in America over a year after its release.

 

That being said, I couldn't see why this didn't win people over with the music video alone. The concept of a man dancing for his life/sanity and the reason behind it was genius, and Mitsubishi even co-opted a version (albeit way inferior) of it to include the Eclipse...

 

 "Days Go By" climbed to the top-20 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart in June of 2002. On the radio, the song climbed to #7 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, #21 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format, and #12 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic radio panel. The remixes of the track, done by the Harris' as well as A-list DJs like Scumfrog and Paul Oakenfold, helped the track spend a week at #1 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, the single went to #16 the second time around in the United Kingdom, and reached the top-40 in New Zealand (#27) and Ireland (#28). The trio released their self-titled debut album in June as the single was peaking, went to #7 on the Billboard 200 sales tally (helped by the lack of a commercial single), going on to sell over a half-million copies. At the Grammy Awards, "Days Go By" won the award for Best Dance Recording, and was nominated for Best Music Video, which Eminem criminally won for the crass "Without Me". The Dirty Vegas album was also up for Best Recording Package for the artwork of the set, losing to the Dixie Chicks for Home. 

The album's opening track "I Should Know" was promoted to American clubs later that year, and it was a minor dance hit at #31 on Billboard's Club Play chart. Meanwhile, the actual second single pulled from the debut, the ambient gem "Ghosts", landed the trio a second top-40 hit in the UK at #31, but didn't get much notice in the States. 

In 2004, Smith and the Harrises returned with their sophomore album One. The attempt to veer into more "pop radio" territory didn't get a good reception, with the record missing the charts in both the US and the UK. However, their was a tasty nugget mixed into the record with New Order-esque single "Walk Into The Sun", which topped the American Dance Club Play chart in Billboard. It wasn't as big in Britain, stopping at #54, and the group split up after a tour. 

Paul Harris went on to remix others' tracks like Kylie Minogue and Bananarama. In 2011, Paul Harris and Steve Smith reunited under the Dirty Vegas name and released a third album under the indie dance label Om, Electric Love. Three of its tracks made Billboard's Dance Club Play chart, with "Changes" doing the best at #19. Their most recent full-length, Photograph, on the online-only D-Vision label, arrived in 2015. In 2020, the duo put out a one-off single "Happening".

(9/10)

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Here's the remix from Jesse "Scumfrog" Houk that helped the song top Billboard's Dance Club Play chart...

 

Next up, the Mitsubishi commercial that brought the song to a new audience in the States, in one of the biggest pre-internet "viral" moments...

 

 Capitalizing on that popularity, the car company even commissioned a rework of the original video to include the car....

The group performed the song with funk legend Bootsy Collins at the Dancestar Music Awards in 2002...

Lastly, here's Steve Smith doing an acoustic version of the club classic...

Up tomorrow: Affable country singer and picker takes to the lake.