Songoftheday 12/22/16 - The way we stand and the way we lie, The way we love and the way we cry...
from the album Back To The Block (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #18 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 8
Today's song of the day comes from producer, musician, and record mogul Quincy Jones, who besides producing the biggest names in pop music, like Michael Jackson's Thriller and Bad albums, had also released his own set The Dude in 1981, that had spun off three top-40 pop hits with "Ai No Corrida", "Just Once", and "One Hundred Ways" (the last two with James Ingram). He also helped arrange the massive charity effort single "We Are The World" by USA for Africa in 1985. Four years later, Jones released his second album under his name in the decade, Back On The Block. This time with contemporary stars like Siedah Garrett, Tevin Campbell, and rappers like Ice-T and Kool Moe Dee, it was a departure from his soft-pop leanings on The Dude. The first single from the project was a new-jack-swing cover of a song he originally produced for the Brothers Johnson in 1976. "I'll Be Good To You", written by the brothers with Sonora Sam, was from the siblings' debut album Look Out For #1, and topped the R&B chart while reaching #3 on the American pop Hot 100 list...
For Jones' 1989 version, he enlisted soul veterans Ray Charles and Chaka Khan to provide the vocals, and it was the new jack song your grandmother could love...
Jones' "I'll Be Good To You" reached the American pop top-40 in January of 1990, the first for Ray Charles since 1971, and his final top-40 hit. The song also topped Billboard's R&B chart for two weeks, and climbed to #30 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart. The 12" remix single went to #1 on the Dance Club Play list as well. Internationally, the song went to #7 in New Zealand, and reached the top-40 in the UK (#21), Germany (#34), and the Netherlands (#38). The Back On The Block album won Quincy a Grammy for Album of the Year, which The Dude lost out on in 1982 to John Lennon's Double Fantasy (natch).
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The single topped the dance chart thanks to two slammin' remixes. First, here's the "Around The House mix"...
...and the Soul II Soul-inspired "Good For The Soul Mix"...
Vanessa Williams also covered the song for her Everlasting Love album with dance-music artist D-Train Williams...
...and finally, here's Chaka performing the song live...
Up tomorrow: British metalheads are stupid romantics.
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