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'90s Survivor: 1995 - Winner Announced!


TwistedElegance™

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Fun fact: Babyface wrote and produced 40% of our Top 10 for 1995, putting his golden touch to Whitney Houston's 'Exhale' and Madonna's 'Take a Bow', as well as 'Diggin' On You' and 'Red Light Special', both by TLC. Having also written and produced on Mariah Carey's Daydream means he was involved in five of the seven parent albums in our Top 10, most notably the soundtrack to Waiting To Exhale on which he wrote and produced every track except Chaka Khan's cover of the 1937 show tune 'My Funny Valentine'. Of the nine acts featured in our Top 10, Babyface has worked with all of them besides Groove Theory, giving him a strike rate of 88%!

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Writers: Madonna, Babyface

Producers: Madonna, Babyface

Label: Maverick/Sire/Warner Bros.

Opening our Top 10 for 1995 is Madonna with the sublime 'Take a Bow'. A critical and commercial smash, the song topped the Hot 100 for seven weeks, becoming the Queen of Pop's longest reign at number one. Madonna ended up in Billboard's annual Top 10 for the seventh time when 'Take a Bow' placed sixth for 1995. She wanted an R&B sound for her Bedtime Stories album, a quest that led her to Babyface. The two stars met at Madonna's record label office and hit it off. They decided to write songs together, and Madonna drove herself over to Babyface's house for a working session. One of the two songs that resulted was based on a piece of music Babyface had written. "I didn't know where to take it," he confesses. "She immediately heard something in it. She clearly gave the song direction." They agreed that the first line of the song, "Take a bow," should be the title, even though the words weren't repeated in the rest of the song. The track is also memorable for its dramatic video which depicts Madonna as the neglected lover of a Spanish bullfighter. In an interview with MTV's Kurt Loder on the set of the music video, Madonna said that when she was initially writing 'Take a Bow' the inspiration for the song was an actor, but she wanted the male character in the video to be to be a matador instead because she wanted the video to be about an "obsessive, tragic love story that doesn't work out in the end" and a matador would be more visually effective in expressing the emotion of the song. Although the single was a huge hit in the United States, it performed moderately in the United Kingdom and peaked at number 16. 'Take a Bow' ended Madonna's record string of 35 consecutive Top 10 singles on the UK Singles Chart from 'Like a Virgin' (1984) to 'Secret' (1994). The song reached number one in Canada while peaking at number 15 in Australia.

Songs remaining (in alphabetical order:

Baby - Brandy

Diggin' On You - TLC

Exhale (Shoop Shoop) - Whitney Houston

Fantasy - Mariah Carey

One Sweet Day - Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men

Red Light Special - TLC

Scream - Michael Jackson & Janet Jackson

Tell Me - Groove Theory

Waterfalls - TLC

____________________

One Sweet Day

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