Let Me Be The One

"Let Me Be The One" — Expose Brings Miami to the Top Ten in 1987

The Miami Sound Goes National

There was something singular happening in Miami in the mid-1980s. Out of the Latin-influenced clubs and studios of South Florida came a style that fused freestyle dance beats with melodic pop hooks and a female vocal sensibility that was simultaneously tough and tender, street-aware and deeply romantic. The sound was too specific to be called generic and too danceable to be called alternative. Expose were among the most successful acts to carry that Miami freestyle aesthetic into the American mainstream, and "Let Me Be The One" was among their most accomplished and commercially durable singles.

Expose and the Freestyle Moment

The group's lineup and sound evolved considerably between their early recordings and their mainstream breakthrough, but by 1987 they had crystallized into a configuration built around the voices of Ann Curless, Gioia Bruno, and Jeanette Jurado, with production handled by Lewis Martinee, the primary architect of the Miami freestyle sound. Martinee's production style combined synthesizer textures drawn from electronic dance music with the melodic structures of traditional pop songwriting, creating something that worked equally well on dance floors and on mainstream radio. "Let Me Be The One" exemplified this balance: a track with genuine rhythmic drive that also carried a chorus strong enough to stand without the rhythm section beneath it.

A Remarkable Chart Run

The single entered the Billboard Hot 100 on August 15, 1987, debuting at number 77. What followed was one of the more sustained and patient climbs of that year on the chart: the song ascended week by week through the summer and into fall, reaching its peak of number 7 on October 31, 1987. The track spent an impressive 22 weeks on the Hot 100, a chart run that demonstrated depth of audience engagement rather than a brief moment of novelty attention. Sustaining a presence on the national chart for over five months while reaching the top ten is a genuine commercial achievement by any era's standards, and it placed Expose firmly in the front rank of 1987's pop successes.

The Sound in Context

In the fall of 1987, the Hot 100 was crowded with material from very different corners of the pop world. Michael Jackson's Bad era was commanding significant chart real estate, hair metal was reaching its commercial peak, and r&b was in the midst of a significant creative and commercial resurgence. The fact that a Miami freestyle vocal group could place a single in the top ten in that environment speaks to how broadly appealing their sound actually was. Freestyle occupied its own lane without being marginal, and Expose drove that lane with authority.

What the Song Represented

Expose's success with "Let Me Be The One" is one of the stories of the 1980s pop mainstream as a genuinely expansive space. A Miami-based, Latin-influenced female vocal trio with an electronic production aesthetic could reach the top ten on the same chart that week as artists from completely different musical traditions. The 22-week chart run was not a fluke; it reflected an audience that kept returning to the record because it delivered something they valued. That something was the combination of rhythmic sophistication and melodic clarity that Martinee had perfected and that the three singers delivered with a conviction that no amount of studio polish could substitute for. Songs built on genuine artistic alignment between production and performance do not date in the way that trend-chasing records do, and "Let Me Be The One" has proven that over the decades since its release. The song is worth playing now not just because it is good, but because it is a reminder of how large the pop tent actually was when the charts were at their most eclectic. Press play and let 1987 come back to you.

"Let Me Be The One" — Expose's singular moment on the 1980s charts.