Songoftheday 11/27/17 - A man decides after seventy years that what he goes there for is to unlock the door...

"Crazy" - Seal
from the album Seal (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's song of the day comes from London-born singer/songwriter Henry Samuel, aka Seal, who after traveling the world singing in gigs with bands and on his own, came back to Britain by the late 1980's. His first notice came in 1988 when he sang on dance act S'Express' UK Top 10 hit "Superfly Guy". That record also climbed to #2 on the American Dance Club Play chart as well. Two years later, Seal was recruited by acid house master Adamski, and their co-written collaboration "Killer" ended up topping the British singles chart. It also hit the charts around the world, and even landed on Billboard's Dance Club Play list at #23. With the success of this single, Seal was signed to ZTT Records, the label started by producer Trevor Horn (Yes, Frankie Goes To Hollywood). He recorded his self-titled debut album, which would include "Killer", and it was released in the spring of 1991. The first single from the record would be "Crazy", written by Seal with Guy Sigsworth (his first big break in the pop world). The spacey pop-rock number had quite an edge with Seal's emotive and dramatic vocals, and the music video had up-to-date special effects that were done in a style to not overpower the music...

"Crazy" became Seal's first solo hit, reaching the top ten on the American pop Hot 100 in September of 1991. The single also climbed to #5 on Billboard's Modern Rock radio chart. Internationally, the song was his highest-charting single in his native Britain, peaking at #2, while topping the singles chart in the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and Belgium. It also made the top ten in Germany (#2), Norway (#3), Poland (#3), France (#5), Austria (#5), Ireland (#6), New Zealand (#8), Australia (#9), Canada (#9), and Italy (#9). The video was nominated for four MTV Video Awards, and won the Ivor Novello worldwide songwriting award. The following year, he would win BRIT Awards for best album and British male solo artist.

Seal's second single from the album, "Future Love Paradise", reached the top ten in the Netherlands and Switzerland and peaked at #12 in the UK. A third release, "The Beginning", appropriately the album's opening track and returning Seal to his acid-house roots, was his first solo top ten success on the American Dance Club Play chart at #6, while topping off at #24 in Britain. A remade version of "Killer" for the album, remixed by William Orbit, brought Seal back to the British top ten at #8, and popped on to the Billboard Hot 100 pop tally at #100 for two weeks (it also got to #9 on the Dance Club Play chart). Finally, the track "Violet" made it five top-40 UK hits from the album at #39.

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Here's Seal performing the song at the Grammys in 1991...

And in concert after his first success in 1991 in Ireland...

German hip-hop duo RnG sampled "Crazy" on their single "Open Up Your Mind", which reached #14 in Germany in 1998...

Back to another concert performance of the song from Seal...

In 2003, an acoustic version of the song climbed to #4 on Billboard's Digital Songs chart...

Canadian alt-rock star Alanis Morissette covered "Crazy" on her 2005 album The Collection, and the resulting single climbed to #10 on Billboard's Adult Top-40 format radio chart, #6 on their Dance Club Play list, and "bubbled under" their pop Hot 100 at #104...

That same year, a CD single containing new remixes of "Killer" and "Crazy" was released, and the double-sided hit reached #1 on Billboard's dance Club Play chart...