How did "From Sarah With Love" breakthrough?
30.12.05 Written by Thomas Mo

Some food for thoughts, here it goes =)

Introduction
On the 19th December 2001, "From Sarah With Love" hits #1 in Germany and has become a trademark piece for Sarah afterwhich. The ballad stays on top for 3 consecutive weeks, dragging it all the way through Christmas time. But the question is, how did it breakthrough Sarah's career?

Previous Singles
Let's look back few months ago in May 2001, where Sarah hit the shore with "Let's Get Back To Bed - Boy", it did not debut on #2 right away, instead, it was a slow burner in any case with the help of US rapper TQ. The song is very catchy and has great hook after hook, it was indeed one of the best produced songs on the later-released debut album "Green Eyed Soul" and become one of the best selling singles in 2001.

"French Kissing", the single in between the debut and later massive singles, received poor appeal to audiences, peaking at a dismal #26. The song is catchy as well, but it probably is too "dark" and overly-soul immerged that it sounds like a non-commercial song that RnB singers like Ashanti would sing.

U-Turn
Then as it hits November, "From Sarah With Love" was released and by the second week, it topped the charts. If anyone would've heard the song they would probably say the "commerciality" of the song is the reason why it did so well. 850,000 copies were sold to date and it became a signature song for Sarah. Is it only because of the mass appeal of the song itself? Or was it something else?

The Reason
For obvious reasons, "From Sarah With Love" is definitely is the best technical, and most commercial ballad that has been released during the early 2000 era where pop music starts fading and radios were invaded by the hip hop culture. Another good reason might be that the song, was cleverly released during close-to Christmas time, where love and joy were spreaded around - as cheesy as it sounds, people tend to go for Chrimassy things as a part of their shopping spree.

Sarah was also named as the "Delmenhorst diva", after "From Sarah With Love" got released, proving to the audiences that not only she has the sex appeal, the looks, etc - she also has the voice - a voice that captured everyone on the radio whilst being released. Thus, completing the cycle of breakthrough of Sarah Connor as an artist.