Songoftheday 6/7/23 - Someone told me love would all save us, but how can that be look what love gave us...
"Hero" - Chad Kroeger featuring Josey Scott
from the album Music from and inspired by Spider-Man (2002)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 19
Today's song comes from the lead singer of the rock band Nickelback, Chad Kroeger, who took them to #1 on the pop and rock charts at the close of 2001 with their breakthrough single "How You Remind Me". However, pop radio was cooler on any of the follow-up singles from their Silver Side Up album, with "Too Bad" just missing the Billboard magazine Hot 100 top-40. In the meanwhile, Chad had recorded a song for the upcoming big-ticket movie Spider-Man starring Tobey Maguire as the titular superhero. The result was the power-ballad "Hero", which Kroeger wrote and produced himself. For the recording of the single Chad assembled a "supergroup" of bro-rock guys including Matt Cameron from Pearl Jam, Tyler Connelly from Theory Of A Deadman, and his brother/Nickelback bandmate Mike Kroeger. Joining him on vocals was Josey Scott of the hard-rock group Saliva.
Saliva came together in Tennessee originally in the mid-1990's, and after putting themselves out in concert, they released their self-titled debut album in 1997 under the indie Rockinghorse label. After creating a buzz and selling pretty decently, they were picked up by Island Records, where they worked on their major label debut Every Six Seconds for years before it came out in 2001. The lead single from the record, "Your Disease", peaked at #3 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart, and #7 on their Alternative Rock counterpart, and "bubbled under" the all-genre Hot 100 at #116. The song was nominated for a Grammy Award a year later for Best Hard Rock Performance, losing to Linkin Park for "Crawling". The Every Six Seconds album went to #56 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, but sold steadily in the long run going on to sell over two million copies.
Kroeger and Scott's "duet" for the movie was a grandiose waltz meant to both cash in on the Marvel franchise as well as America's post-9/11 vibe, being the second hit single in that time with just "Hero" as the name after Enrique Iglesias' unrelated love bomb. On the positive side, Chad and Josey's voices compliment each other very well, and swell with the music at just the right times without going into histrionics. On the other hand, I can't help but hear this as a harder but blatant rewrite of Seal's "Kiss From A Rose" from the Batman movie, an infinitely better song. Nevertheless, it was the right power-ballad at the right time with the right blockbuster movie promoting it, so Kroeger found he lifted his band's momentum back up with its success...
"Hero" reached the top ten on Billboard's Hot 100 in July of 2002. The song was massive on rock radio, spending three weeks at #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart, and two on the Alternative Rock side. It also crossed over to the older-skewing Adult top-40 format, peaking at #5, while getting to #2 on the regular Mainstream Top-40 airplay list. Internationally, like the movie it was tied to, "Hero" soared, topping the chart in Kroeger's Canadian homeland, and reaching the top ten in Ireland (#2), Portugal (#2), Poland (#2), Denmark (#3), the United Kingdom (#4), Sweden (#7), Germany (#8), Austria (#8), Switzerland (#8), Croatia (#8), and New Zealand (#10). It also hit the top-40 in Italy (#11), Australa (#17), Belgium (#19 Wallonia/#26 Flanders), Romania (#19), France (#27), and the Netherlands (#34). The Spider-Man soundtrack, released in April of that year, went to #4 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2003, "Hero" was nominated in three categories: Best Duo/Group Rock Vocal Performance (losing to Coldplay's "In My Place"), Best Rock Song (which went to Bruce Springsteen for "The Rising"), and Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media (which went home with Randy Newman for "If I Didn't Have You" from Monsters, Inc.).
A second song from the Spider-Man soundtrack, "What We're All About" by Sum-41, became a top-40 hit in the UK at #32. (Coincidentally Avril Lavigne was married to Sum-41 lead singer Deryck Whibley before he married Chad Kroeger.) That was followed by "Bother" by Slipknot lead singer Corey Taylor's side-project Stone Sour, which went to #56 on the Hot 100, #27 on the Adult Top-40 radio chart, while making both the Mainstream (#2) and Alternative (#4) rock radio lists.
As for Josey Scott, he went back to Saliva, and their first album after "Hero", Back Into Your System, climbed to #19 on the Billboard 200 (tied for their highest rank). The first single from the set, "Always", tried to capture the grandeur of "Hero", and was a modest hit, topping the Alternative Rock chart, getting to #2 on the Mainstream counterpart, and stopping at #51 on the Hot 100 (their best as a band). The second, "Rest In Pieces", popped on to the Hot 100 at #93, their so-far last appearance there. Since then, the band has released eight more studio albums, with a myriad of lineup changes including the departure of Scott, who left for a solo Christian rock career which went absolutely nowhere (to be replaced by Bobby Amaru in 2011). Their most recent album 10 Lives came out in 2018. Scott reunited with the band in 2019 (he promised to be back with the band but that never materialized).
Meanwhile, Chad went to bigger glories with Nickelback, but as a solo artist he'll be back in the series in a featured gig.
(6/10)
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..and with his band in 2003...
Up tomorrow: Rap duo remain fresh.
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