Songoftheday 12/15/17 - Yo it's about that time to bring forth the rhythm and the rhyme, I'm a get mine so get yours I wanna see sweat comin' out your pores...

"Good Vibrations" - Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch featuring Loleatta Holloway
from the album Music For The People (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 15

Today's song of the day comes from rapper turned now actor Mark Wahlberg, aka "Marky Mark". Mark, whose brother Donnie was a member of the massively popular boyband New Kids On The Block at the time, was actually an early part of that act for a quick moment in time, but drugs and crime consumed most of his teenage years. Straightening himself out, Donnie got Mark signed as his own act, along with "The Funky Bunch", four non-descript dancers which were obviously put there to give him some sort of hip-hop credit. With Donnie producing his debut album Music For The People, and New Kid Danny Wood co-writing a couple of tracks, this set would really appeal mostly to the teens and tweens that followed his brother. However, the first single, "Good Vibrations", ended up having universal appeal, with a bouncy house music beat and a sample of a disco classic that already had pushed a single, albeit less honorably. "Love Sensation", written by the late great Dan Hartman and recorded by singer Loleatta Holloway, never hit the pop chart, but was a #1 dance hit back in 1980...

In 1989, Italian dance music act Black Box sampled the song in two of the singles from their Dreamland album, "Ride On Time", which would be an international smash, and "I Don't Know Anybody Else", which hit the top-40 in America. However, neither of these two acknowledged or credited Holloway or Hartman (or Martha Wash in the latter song).

While "Good Vibrations", written by Mark and Donnie along with friend Amir Shakir (with songwriting credit for Hartman as well), was built on a slice of "Love Sensation" to make up the chorus, they got Holloway to sing and receive credit on the record, which Mark adequately raps his gyrating six-pack torso into many a girl and guy's heart (and other places). The music video was way racier than anything the New Kids would even touch, and naturally, it was Mark's biggest musical success...

"Good Vibrations" carried Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch all the way to the top of the American pop chart in October of 1991. The single also crossed over to Billboard's R&B chart, peaking at #64. The remixes on the 12" single helped the track climb to #10 on their Dance Club Play list as well. Internationally, "Good Vibrations" topped the singles charts in Sweden and Switzerland, and reached the top ten in Norway (#2), Germany (#3), Australia (#4), Canada (#7), Belgium (#8), New Zealand (#8), Finland (#8), and the Netherlands (#10). In the UK, the song stopped at #14.

Loleatta, who still had a big gay and dance music lovers following, continued to produce great club hits, re-releasing "Love Sensation" in 1993 and reaching #32 on the Dance chart, and again in 2006 and hitting the British pop top-40 at #37. She also topped the American Dance Club Play chart in Billboard in 2000 with a remake of her 1977 single "Dreamin'". Sadly, she passed away in 2011.

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Here's Mark and the Bunch appearing on the Arsenio Hall show, doing a pretty respectable live job and giving props to Holloway singing there. Even Donnie is there on the congas...