Robbed hit of the week 11/18/24 - Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up"...

 
"You Raise Me Up" - Josh Groban
from the album Closer (2003)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #73 
 
This week's "robbed hit" comes from singer and actor Josh Groban, who grew up in Los Angeles and started music and acting and a very young age. Although he had started college to study music, he left quickly after being taken under the wing of uber-producer David Foster. Josh got his first big break when he covered for an absent Andrea Bocelli at the Grammy Awards rehearsals in 1999, singing "The Prayer" with Celine Dion that got him to appear on the Rosie O'Donnell Show. With that exposure, he was discovered by TV producer David Kelley, who wrote Groban into the hit TV show Ally McBeal

Signed to Warner Brothers Records, Josh released his eponymous debut album in 2001. A song from the record, "To Where You Are", was also featured on Ally McBeal, and helped it top Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary chart for two weeks in the spring of the following year, while "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #116. Taking advantage of the unsung audience for classical-pop crossover, Josh Groban rose to #8 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, spending almost two years on the list and selling over five million copies in the process. A Josh Groban In Concert live release followed, which made a respectable #34 showing on the Billboard 200. A version of "O Holy Night" tacked on to the set scored a second #1 Adult Contemporary radio hit, and also bubbled under the Hot 100 at #109 after he was on the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting in 2002. At the start of the next year, Josh returned to the AC top ten with another track from his debut, "You're Still You", which peaked at #10. 
 
At the start of the holiday season in 2003, Groban returned with his second studio set Closer, which followed the template of straddling the pop and classical border (as well as language ones). For the lead single from the record, Foster brought Josh one of the biggest of big pop power-ballads, "You Raise Me Up". The song was written initially as a music piece by Rolf Løvland, a member of the Norwegian-Irish group Secret Garden, who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1996 on behalf of Norway for "Nocturne". Rolf asked Irish songwriter Brendan Graham, who also had a hand in writing two Eurovision winners, to put lyrics to the song, and after Johnny Logan (who won Eurovision twice) was nixed another singer, Brian Kennedy, recorded it with Secret Garden (ironicially, he would go on to represent Ireland at Eurovision in 2006.)


When Foster produced Groban's version, he left the funeral-like peace of the original to go for Celine-esque bombast to make the cougars moist, but at least he begins the affair with the somber string introduction, and adds some nice Celtic touches before the key change when the orchestra and backup choir rush in like a sonic tsunami. The lyrics are so plainly powerful and inspirational that it's no wonder a Eurovision ace made them, they seem like they've always existed. The music video casts Groban in some sort of artist collective with dancers, singers, and musicians, all of his younger age to sell to the younguns....


While "You Raise Me Up" topped Billboard magazine's Adult Contemporary chart for six weeks, the song was shunned by "pop" radio, and despite going on to be triple-platinum (three million copies sold), it stalled in the lower reaches of the Hot 100 in April of 2004. It wasn't really an international success as a single either, only making the top-40 in Denmark in 2009 (#28) and in France in 2012 (#16). But the Closer album was a different story, spending a week at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales tally and eventually being the third-biggest album of the year, going on to sell over six million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2005, "You Raise Me Up" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, criminally losing to John Mayer's "Daughters". 

A second single from the Closer record, "Remember When It Rained", spent a half year on the Adult Contemporary chart, peaking at #15. Another track from Closer, "Per Te", had a music video released as well. At the end of 2004, Groban contributed a song to the soundtrack of the Tom Hanks holiday music The Polar Express, which went to #46 on the Billboard 200 and sold over a half-million copies. His song, "Believe", topped the Adult Contemporary radio chart for five weeks (the "Christmas song" winner by far) and "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #112. It went on to win a Grammy Award for Best Song from Visual Media in 2006. The year before, it also was up for Best Song at the Academy Awards, which went to Uruguayan singer/songwriter Jorge Drexler for "Al otro lado del rio" (fun fact - the Oscars wouldn't let Drexler perform the song because he was an unknown. Take from that as you will). Also, a second concert album at the close of 2004, Live At The Greek, made the top-40 on the Billboard 200 at #24, selling another half-million records. 
 
Groban returned in the late fall of 2006 with his third studio set Awake, which spent a week at #2 on the Billboard 200, again spent over a year on the chart, and sold over two million copies. The big song from the album, "You Are Loved (Don't Give Up)", tried to recapture the inspirational tone of "You Raise Me Up" but with a more "modern" backdrop helped by producer Guy Sigsworth. It wasn't as big but still made it to #9 on the Adult Contemporary radio chart while bubbling under the top-40 at #110. An accompanying concert release Awake Live made the top ten at #8 on the Billboard 200 in the spring of 2008. 

But before that, Josh put out what would be his biggest success. He recorded the holiday album Noel with producers David Foster and Humberto Gatica, and with the backing of the prestigious London Symphony Orchestra. Released in October of 2007, with guest singers like Faith Hill and Brian McKnight, the album was a phenomenon not seen since the days of Kenny G. The record spent five non-consecutive weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200, and so far has spent 113 weeks on the Billboard 200 (a big feat for a set with a small sales window). His version of "I'll Be Home For Christmas" took three weeks atop the Adult Contempoary chart, and "bubbled under" the Hot 100 at #110, while three other tracks from the record also made the top 20 on that radio list. Noel was nominated for a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Album in 2009, losing to Natalie Cole's cash-in sequel Still Unforgettable. In the spring of 2008, a redo of "The Prayer" with Celine Dion, released as a one-off single, became his highest-charting hit on the Hot 100 at #70. 

Josh's next step on 143 Records was his 2010 release Illuminations, which came in at #4 on the Billboard 200 and sold over a million copies. Produced by Rick Rubin, it attempted to update his sound for the "adult pop" scene, but it didn't resonate as well, though it scored a pair of top-20 adult contemporary hits with "Hidden Away" making it to #12. With 143 folded into Reprise Records, Groban's following album in 2013 All That Echoes (again grabbing "hot" producer Rob Cavallo), brought him back to #1 on the Billboard 200, though selling about a half million copies (record sales were precipitously dropping at that point). Again, it spun off two top-20 AC hits including "Brave" (co-written by underrated Canadian chanteuse Chantal Kreviazuk), which made it to #13. 

After a two year break, Josh signaled his next career path with the release of his seventh studio album Stages in 2015, which had the singer cover Broadway show classics. Not really promoted to radio, nevertheless brought out his fans, and in return spent a week at #1 on the Billboard 200 and sold over a half million records. The album was nominated for a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Album, which was won by vocal music legend Tony Bennett and pianist Bill Charlap for The Silver Lining: The Songs Of Jerome Kern. Again, a live record followed in 2016, and Awake Live, which placed at #149 on the Billboard 200 for a week, also got a Grammy nod in that category the following year, which Willie Nelson took home for Summertime: Willie Nelson Sings Gershwin. In the holiday season of 2017, Noel was given an "anniversary deluxe edition" treatment, and two of the new tracks made the adult contemporary charts, with "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" going all the way to #1 in 2016 and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" going to #4 the following year.

Meanwhile, in 2016 Groban took to the stage for the musical Natasha, Pierre, and the Comet of 1812, which was critically acclaimed and earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a musical, which went to Ben Platt for his role in Dear Evan Hansen

In 2018, Groban was back with a new studio album Bridges, which he had in co-writing nine of the twelve songs for. The set went to #2 on the Billboard 200. His most recent release, Harmony in 2020, hit #17 on that sales tally, and one of its cuts, a remake of the Kenny Loggins classic "Celebrate Me Home", reaching #2 on the Adult Contemporary chart, with a cover of Robbie Williams' "Angels" rising to #19 a year later.

Most recently, Groban returned to Broadway for a new version of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street. Again, he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor aside Ben Platt, but both lost to newcomer J. Harrison Ghee for their part in Some Like It Hot. The cast album from Sweeney Todd was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, again losing to Some Like It Hot. He also just put out a holiday single, a version of "Do You Hear What I Hear?" with the alt-soul duo the War and Treaty. 

(10/10)

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In 2007, a special version of "You Raise Me Up" with the African Children's Choir from the Idol Gives Back charity concert was released as a single and hit #76 on the Hot 100...


At the Super Bowl in 2004 (yes, the one with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake), Groban performed the song in a tribute to the victims of the Columbia space shuttle crash the year prior...


The Christian group Selah took a remake of the song to #2 on the Christian Songs chart in Billboard magazine...
 
 
In 2005, the Irish boy-band Westlife covered "You Raise Me Up", giving international ears a chance to hear the song. Their version topped the charts in the United Kingdom and Ireland, reached the top ten in Australia and Norway (both at #3), and made the top-40 in Germany (#11), Switzerland (#18), and Greece (#38)...


Dutch singer Wesley Klein, who won the televised singing competition Popstars in that country, spent three weeks at #1 with his take on the tune...


In 2008, Josh appeared on David Foster's self-tribute show...


and finally, we have Groban in 2018 at the Proms in Hyde Park...











 

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