The collaboration between the two musicians began in 1999, when Adams contacted Bracegirdle at his studio to arrange for a remix of Adams's forthcoming single "Cloud Number 9" from his 1998 album On a Day Like Today. The resulting remix was selected by Adams as the radio edit of the single, which went on to reach number six on the UK chart. Later, having written the music for a track that needed to be turned into a song, Bracegirdle played the idea to Adams during his search for a voice. Adams agreed to the role, and also wrote the melody and lyrics to the song "Don't Give Up". Adams's rock-styled vocals were buried in audio processing. This was done through Prosoniq's OrangeVocoderplugin on Steinberg's Cubase VSTdigital audio workstation. Even though his voice was altered electronically, it is still recognisable. One critic felt the processed vocals were unsuccessful: "Adams digitally treated his vocal on this track to an extreme degree to make it sound less rock. I don't think he quite manages it – his singing is husky anyhow."
Release
Adams's vocal credit was initially not publicized, particularly when the single, in a white label release, was first played by noted BBC Radio 1DJPete Tong on his 31 December 1999Essential Selection show. It was chosen as Tong's "Essential New Tune" selection, which, on this episode, was specially designated "Essential New Tune for the millennium". On a later January show, Judge Jules, standing in for Tong, played it as the Essential New Tune again. It was also included on Tong's Essential Selection Spring 2000 compilation album. On the week of 12 March 2000, "Don't Give Up" overtook "American Pie", Madonna's number one single of the previous week, on the UK Singles Chart, outselling it by 1224 copies. The song featured on the acclaimed 2000 mix albumCreamLive. The song sold 270,000 copies in the UK as stated by the Official UK Charts Company. In 2004, following Bracegirdle's departure from Xtravaganza, the label issued "Don't Give Up 2004", a single including only new remixes by label founder Alex Gold and Xtravaganza artists Agnelli & Nelson. A music video was released for the song, featuring a young girl working in a dystopian scenario, who occasionally snatches views of herself living in a more pleasant existence, interspersed with scenes of Adams singing the song.
Critical reception
Dom Passantino of Stylus Magazine was mixed, saying "this is our Bryan's only entry to number one , a far too obvious attempt at appealing to both Dave Pearce and Ken Bruce at the same time. Bizarrely enough, time has revealed it to actually be the colour negative of 'Emerge' by Fischerspooner. Except this actually sold some copies." Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger, although saying the song predicted the EDM boom of the 2010s, was also mixed, saying: "Inadvertently, the track hits on an idea – throaty, effortful bloke singing over formula builds and drops – that we will see an awful lot of in the early 2010s. But this inadvertent futurism isn't the result of any particular vision, just an offspring of the listless humping of two clichés."
