As most music fans know, songs that reach the Top 40 in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart are typically considered to be hits and tend to get all the glory...although even some of them become thought of forgotten hits. In this day and age of streaming and finding music from many different sources, maybe this adage is a little less true. At any rate, I want to show some love to these great songs. Maybe they performed well on another genre-specific chart but didn't make it to the Top 40 on the Hot 100 or onto the Hot 100 at all. Or maybe I charted them on my own chart, but they didn't make much of an impact at all. Either way, let's go back to the 2010s for the time being.
Cassidy Podell, better known by his stage name DJ Cassidy, grew up in New York City a fan of many different types of music but chiefly Disco, Funk, R&B and post-Disco R&B music of the mid-1970s into the mid 1980s. Discovered in the early 2000s, his earliest "big" gig occurred in 2001 DJing Jennifer Lopez's wedding to Cris Judd. Other gigs working industry parties continued later into the decade, including DJ-ing the 2008 wedding of Beyoncé and Jay-Z and the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama. His profile in the industry had grown to a level by the mid-2010s that he began work on an album of music...an album that ultimately didn't see a release. But before it was shelved, "Calling All Hearts," one of the songs that was to be included on the album, saw a single release and caught my attention in a big way. The celebratory tune that features the vocals of Robin Thicke and Jessie J sounds tailor-made for play at a family reunion or during the closing scene of a rom com when the couple finally finds their way together, having triumphed against all that was keeping them apart. It became a hit in a handful of countries after it was released, getting to the Top 10 in South Africa, Scotland, Ireland, and the U.K. But although it managed a #9 peak on the U.S. Dance chart, it didn't make it onto the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart. It did, however, spend a few weeks at #1 on my own personal chart that year. This one is still such a jam and will always be one of my favorites. As for Cassidy, his album release may have fizzled but he's gone on to other high-profile things and continues to be active in the music industry. For several years, he headlined and curated the prominent and highly-anticipated Pass The Mic segment during the annual Soul Train Music Awards and played a prominent role during the roll call of states at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
