Songoftheday 3/22/24 - When the world was in upside down, I could take all the time I had...
"This Is The Night"/"Bridge Over Troubled Water" - Clay Aiken
from the album Measure Of A Man (2003)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 7
Today's song comes from Clay Aiken, who in the spring of 2003 participated in the second season of the television singing competition American Idol. Growing up a "church choir kid" in North Carolina, Clay was following the path of becoming a special education teacher when he auditioned for the show as a homely geek with a promising voice. He originally didn't make it past the cattle-call stage in Hollywood, but was voted in by the public as the "wild card" contestant. By the end of the contest, Aiken had come in second to Ruben Studdard. However his fanbase was huge, loving the ugly duckling transformation he went through during the series. During the show, Aiken joined his fellow finalists in releasing the American Idol Season 2: All-American Love Songs, which included a remake of Lee Greenwood's patriot-product song "God Bless The U.S.A." which in turn was put out as a charity CD single which went to #4 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 that May. On the finale night, Aiken performed three songs, two of which were released as a CD single in May of that year. The "A" side was a cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water". It was a rushed pace to fit the TV episode confines, yet Clay was able to vamp through it with a gospel choir behind him. It was respectable for what it was, in an almost Elvis in Vegas sort of way, but certainly wasn't something groundbreaking...
As for the "B"-side, it would be his prospective "winner's song", which like Kelly Clarkson, would be an original piece to the music scene. In Aiken's case it was "This Is The Night", which was written by Chris Braide, Gary Burr, and Aldo Nova, the latter being the Canadian rocker who had his own success in 1982 with a top ten album and top-40 pop single "Fantasy". This song was more to the format of his more recent success as a songwriter, penning Celine Dion's top-40 hit from 2002 "A New Day Has Come". There was definitely already a template in place for this type of record, which vaguely inspirational lyrics that could be twisted to be either about love or winning the type of competition he was in. Nevertheless like a lot of that era it had some inexplicable lines like "Cause every kiss is a kiss you can never get back". Nevertheless, Clay sold it, maybe not to the level Kelly could, but enough to woo the mostly-female army behind him. The production from Steve Mac is not as cheesy as "A Moment Like This" from the prior year, and reflected Steve's work with the boyband Westlife. Although mainstream pop radio would barely touch it, he did relative well on easy-listening stations (reflecting probably his audience), and since this got substantially more airplay that "Bridge", Billboard would list "This Is The Night" on his Hot 100 run. They tried though, even putting out a music video which didn't have any Idol footage on it....
"This Is The Night" spent two weeks at #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 in June of 2003, ahead of even season two winner Ruben Studdard. On the radio, "This Is The Night" rose to #13 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") airplay chart, spending a hefty 24 weeks on the list, while "Bridge Over Troubled Water" would make that chart for a couple of weeks at #29. Because of being broadcast, the single also topped the charts in Canada and New Zealand. "This Is The Night" would be included on Clay's debut album Measure Of A Man as a "bonus track" (even though it was stuck in the middle), which was released in October of that year. The album spent two weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over two million copies.
Like Clarkson, Aiken and his debut album will be back to the series.
This In The Night: (5/10)
Bridge Over Troubled Water: (5/10)
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
And lastly, Aiken appearing on Good Morning America...
Tomorrow I'll roll out my top hit tunes from this week, then on Monday Song Of The Day will be back with the man who beat Aiken.
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