by

Song of the Day #5,473: ‘Life Goes On’ – BTS

The eighth non-English song to reach the top of the Hot 100 belongs to K-pop sensations BTS. ‘Life Goes On’ was the band’s third #1 hit on the chart in three months, following ‘Dynamite’ and ‘Savage Love,’ but the first in their native tongue. It’s the first song in Korean to top the chart.

This laid-back hip-hop track is the definition of rising high and falling fast. It debuted at #1, slid to #28 in its second week, fell to #93 in its third, and was off the chart completely the week after that. The difference between the staying power of this track vs. its predecessors was largely due to a lack of radio play, likely stemming from it being in Korean.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #5,472: ‘La Bamba’ – Los Lobos

In August of 1987, Los Lobos’ version of ‘La Bamba’ became the fifth non-English song to top Billboard’s Hot 100. The song was included on the soundtrack of the film of the same name, a biopic of 50s rock star Ritchie Valens.

Valens’ version of ‘La Bamba,’ which Los Lobos channeled quite well, reached #22 on the same chart in 1958. It peaked the day before he died, at just 17, in a plane crash that also claimed the lives of Buddy Holly and J. P. Richardson (The Big Bopper).

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #5,471: ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ – Falco

It took 23 years before another non-English track topped the Billboard Hot 100, with Austrian artist Falco achieving the feat with his New Wave bop ‘Rock Me Amadeus.’ The song remains the only German-language song to ever reach #1 on the Hot 100. Nena came close a few years earlier, but her ’99 Luftballons’ peaked at #2.

The song’s lyrics describe Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as a womanizing rock star in his day, incredibly talented but saddled by debts. This depiction was familiar to audiences who had watched Milos Forman’s film Amadeus nearly sweep the Academy Awards just two years earlier.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #5,470: ‘Dominique’ – The Singing Nun (Soeur Sourire)

The second non-English song to reach #1 on the Hot 100 was Kyu Sakamoto’s ‘Sukiyaki,’ which I wrote about this past weekend. That was in June of 1963, five years after ‘Volare.’

It was later the same year that Soeur Sourire, also known as The Singing Nun, took the next non-English song to #1. Though Sourire was Belgian, she wrote and performed her chart-topping hit ‘Dominque’ in French.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #5,469: ‘Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)’ – Domenico Modugno

On Saturday, I mentioned that only nine songs in languages other than English have topped Billboard’s Hot 100. This week I’ll reveal those titles in chronological order.

The first song to pull off the feat was 1958’s ‘Nel blu, dipinto di blu’ (popularly known as ‘Volare’), a ballad co-written and performed by Italian performer Domenico Modugno. Not only was this the first non-English #1 in Hot 100 history, it was just the second #1 on the Hot 100, period, as the chart had debuted just two weeks prior. So for a very brief time, 50% of all Hot 100 chart-toppers were in Italian.

Continue reading →