Songoftheday 2/14/18 - 'cause if I didn't love you I wouldn't be here now, and if I didn't want you I would have turned around by now...

"Change" - Lisa Stansfield
from the album Real Love (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #27 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9

Today's song of the day comes from British soul/pop singer Lisa Stansfield, whose solo debut album Affection had granted her three big hits in America with "This Is The Right Time", "You Can't Deny It", and the top ten smash "All Around The World". In 1991, Lisa released her sophomore effort Real Love, which she co-wrote with former Blue UK bandmates Ian Devaney and Andy Morris. The record was much richer in tone, swinging more towards classic soul than the electronic dance-pop prevalent when she first arrived. The first single from the record, "Change", was a lush midtempo jazz-soul-pop hybrid in the style of acts before her like Swing Out Sister, with an optimistic love message to go with it. Here she talks about the American version of the video before it rolls...

"Change" became Lisa's fourth and so far latest top-40 pop hit in the U.S. in January of 1992. The song also climbed to #12 on Billboard's R&B chart, and made it to #13 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio list. The remixes on the 12" single helped the song spend two weeks at #1 on the American Dance Club Play chart as well. Internationally, the record reached the top ten in Italy (#2), Belgium (#6), the Netherlands (#7), Canada (#10), and her native Britain (#10). It also got into the top 40 in Switzerland (#12), Germany (#13), Sweden (#13), Ireland (#17), New Zealand (#20), Australia (#21), Austria (#24), and France (#30).

The second single from Real Love, the slow but empowering "All Woman", ended up going all the way to #1 on the American R&B chart, but stopped down at #56 on our pop Hot 100 (it peaked at #20 in the UK). The "flipside" to that single, "Everything Will Get Better", was a minor dance club hit in America at #36. Meanwhile in the UK, the song "Time To Make You Mine" was released as the third single, and climbed to #14 there, followed by "Set Your Loving Free", which topped out at #28 in Britain and made its way to #20 on the American dance chart. Lastly, the track "A Little More Love" came out in the U.S., and reached #30 on the R&B chart.

The following year, Stansfield along with Devaney and Morris wrote and recorded a song for the soundtrack to Whitney Houston's The Bodyguard movie, "Someday (I'm Coming Back)". Released as a single in the UK, it brought her back to the top ten at #10. And with over 42 million albums sold worldwide, most likely that song alone would keep Lisa comfortable for the rest of her life.

In 1994, So Natural, Lisa's third album, arrived, and while she went to #8 in the UK, with the lead single "In All The Right Places", nothing from the album made a dent on the American charts, and the album didn't even come out in the States. Three years later, she re-emerged with her self-titled fourth album, which landed Lisa two more British top ten hits with a remix re-release of her Coldcut club classic "People Hold On" which hit #4 and the new song "The Real Thing" at #9. (The latter is a jam you really need to check out.) In the U.S., a remake of Barry White's soft-disco nugget "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up" was offered, and it was her last big hit in this country; it reached #74 on the pop chart, #38 on the R&B chart, and #40 on the Adult Contemporary/Easy Listening chart in Billboard. Also, that song along with "People Hold On", "Never Gonna Fall", and "I'm Leavin'" all topped the Dance Club Play chart here, which led to a remix album release shortly thereafter.

Stansfield's next album, Face Up, again didn't see an American release, but in the UK it did reach the top-40 at #38 (though it was her first to miss the top ten in her homeland). The lead single from the record, "Let's Just Call It Love", also missed the British top-40 at #48 in 2001. That was followed in 2004 with The Moment, which stiffed in the UK (#57) but did relatively well in Continental Europe, landing her a top-40 hit in Belgium with "Treat Me Like A Woman" (#36 BEL). After an eight year break, Lisa came back in 2013 with Seven, which lacked radio hits but was a critical and commercial success, climbing to #13 on the British albums chart. She's about to release her eighth effort Deeper in April of 2018.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the original "international" version of the video, which is a bit more "posh"...