Songoftheday 8/13/24 - What you doing tonight? I wish I could be a fly on your wall, Are you really alone? Who's stealing your dreams?

 

 

"Invisible" - Clay Aiken

from the album Measure Of A Man (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #37 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 1

 

Today's song comes from Clay Aiken, who may have came in second on the second season of American Idol, but won the battle of the charts when his double-promoted single "This Is The Night"/"Bridge Over Troubled Water" topped the Hot 100 in Billboard magazine for two weeks over winner Ruben Studdard's "Flying Without Wings" in the summer of 2003. For his crucial follow-up single, Aiken released the soft-pop nugget "Invisible". Written by the powerhouse songwriting team of Desmond Child, Andreas Carlsson, and Chris Braide (the latter having also co-written "This Is The Night"), it was produced by Child. The lyrics are pretty cringy with major stalker-ish vibes, like wishing he was in her room (gag) and admitting he's been "tracing her steps". But for real, the likes of a Clay Aiken at that time possibly would be having this run through his mind. Not the case of the version that was released first, of a top ten European hit from the Irish boyband D-Side, who took the song to #5 in Ireland and #7 in the United Kingdom. They squeezed in ahead of Aiken in the UK (the "reverse Paper Lace"), but as weird as those lyrics are, they're even more laughable coming from a group of pin-up model-boys. But Aiken, despite his proven on the show strong voice, tones it back on here, and delivers a professional though kind of boilerplate performance. The music video director made the odd choice for this mopey little song to have Clay gleefully sing in front of a throng of fans in the middle of a city street, hardly an "invisible" feat. Nevertheless, I did find Clay's version a modestly good follow-up in general...

"Invisible" (well, Clay's version) became his second top-40 hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in January of 2004. On the radio, the song was his first and only hit on Mainstream Top-40 radio, peaking at #14, while going to #25 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format and #8 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") list. 

Clay Aiken and the Measure Of A Man album will be back to the series. 

(6/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the version from D-Side the made the top ten on the charts in the UK and Ireland...

and here is Clay appearing on Letterman...

and lastly in concert...

Up tomorrow: One exclamation enraptured the country for the year 20 years ago.