#1 Alert!
Gold Record Alert!
Song#: 3778
Date: 01/21/1989
Debut: 42
Peak: 1 (3 weeks)
Weeks: 19
Genre: Pop
Pop Bits: Teenager Gibson made a major mark with her debut album Out of the Blue. It would be a triple-platinum seller that spawned four Pop Top 10 hits including the #1 "Foolish Beat," which made her the youngest performer to write and produce a chart topper. With that success in the rear view, Gibson had to quickly move ahead and record a follow up. Gibson would write all the songs for her second LP Electric Youth and would solely produce six of the ten tracks. The balance she would work on with her previous collaborator Fred Zarr. When completed, this ballad was selected to be the first single. After nearly debuting in the Pop Top 40, it quickly moved up the chart and claimed the #1 spot. It would remain there for three weeks and eventually go gold. The song also did well at AC reaching #3. That success generated a lot of interest in the album and after release it only took five weeks for it to reach #1 where it stayed for five weeks. During that time, the LP was quickly certified double-platinum.
ReduxReview: It seemed a bit unusual for this ballad to be selected as the first single, but it certainly paid off. It was probably a good thing as the song was the best one on the LP. The sweeping tune put Gibson in a slightly more mature light and it gave her a chance to stretch her vocals a little further than what was on her typical bubblegum tunes. Did she knock it out of the park and reach new levels? Not really. It still sounded like a pretty, cute, innocent track from a teenage artist. However, it was all well-crafted and produced and the credit for that all goes to Gibson. She had a goal, she knew what she needed to do, and the outcome was her biggest hit.
ReduxRating: 7/10
Trivia: It was during the last two weeks of this song's three-week reign at #1 that the album started its own #1 run. That combo gave Gibson another chart achievement. She became the youngest female artist (at 18 years old) to simultaneously have the #1 song and album in the country. The only other artist at the time who was younger than Gibson to achieve the same feat was Stevie Wonder. In August of 1963, Wonder reached #1 with his song "Fingertips, Pt. 2" and with his live album The 12 Year Old Genius. Wonder was 13 years old when the song and album reached the top of the charts in the same week.
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Her latest solo album (which had some unexpectedly good tunes on it) has a duet of this with Joey McIntyre, which is so much worse than this version. I'm always amazed when artists record their songs over and they end up being worse than the original.
ReplyDeleteI didn't listen to the album, but did hear the remake...yeah, was not an improvement.
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