Enrique Iglesias — Hero

Twenty-five years on, the Escape ballad has returned to broad global rotation, tracked across 144 country and platform charts after a two-month lull. Its emotional afterlife has always been tied to grief: released in September 2001, the song became bound up with post-9/11 mourning, and Iglesias later performed it on America: A Tribute to Heroes, dedicating it to Aaliyah, who died weeks before the single dropped, per TikTok. The Joseph Kahn–directed video starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Mickey Rourke remains one of its most-viewed artifacts, per IMDb. Its Spanish-language version, "Héroe," has circulated recently in fan edits set to Smallville footage, where the track soundtracked the show's early-2000s run. The song's durability rests on a simple hook engineered for dedication — the kind that resurfaces whenever a moment needs a soundtrack for devotion.