Songoftheday 6/6/17 - Something grabs a hold of me tightly then I flow like a harpoon daily and nightly...
from the album To The Extreme (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 15
Today's song of the day comes from white-boy rapper "Vanilla Ice", aka Robert Van Winkle from Florida by way of Texas, after working his way through clubs in Miami and Dallas, got his big break with a single that originally was independently released as a B-side. "Ice Ice Baby", with the ubiquitous bass sample from Queen & David Bowie's classic "Under Pressure" as the hook to the record, eventually got to be put out by SBK Records, where radio and MTV ate it up. Originally and comically denying that the song wasn't "Under Pressure", eventually the band members would get royalties and songwriting credit for the sample. The lyrics had Ice going to Miami for DJ gig and ending up caught in a drug-fueled gunfight, only to be passed over by police in what's the earliest unknowing acknowledgement of "white privilege"...
"Ice Ice Baby" climbed all the way to #1 on the American pop chart in November of 1990. The single also crossed over to #6 on Billboard's R&B chart. The mixes on the 12" single climbed to #28 on their Dance Club Play list as well. Internationally, the record topped the chart in Australia, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, and New Zealand, while reaching the top ten in Germany (#2), Norway (#2), Finland (#2), Switzerland (#2), Austria (#3), Sweden (#4), Italy (#8), and France (#10). Van Winkle won a couple of American Music Awards for the track, and even was nominated in 1991 for a Grammy Award for Rap Solo Performance, won by MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This".
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Here's "Vanilla" kickin' it up on the Arsenio Hall show (props for doin' it live)...
..and again at the American Music Awards, where he picked up both the Pop/Rock and Rap/Hip-Hop New Artist trophies...
Finally, here's "Ice" live in Russia in 2010...
Up tomorrow: Australian rockers meet up with a femme fatale.
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