Songoftheday 2/26/18 - Now I don't mind being a friend and showin' a little bit of flava, but Wednesday Pugsley Gomez Fester man them some strange neighbors...
from the album Too Legit To Quit (cassette, 1991) or Greatest Hits (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 12
Today's song of the day comes from rapper (MC) Hammer, who dropped the MC from his name and spent a budget of a foreign country on a music video for his top-ten hit "2 Legit 2 Quit" in January of 1991. At the same time, he contributed a song to the reboot movie The Addams Family starring Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston as the TV parents of Gomez and Morticia Addams. The result, "Addams Groove", ended up being one of the most horrific and cheesy singles in history, but that didn't stop him from releasing it at about the same time as "2 Legit...", banking on his momentum and hoping for a rare duo success. That he did get, as "Addams Groove" followed "2 Legit 2 Quit" into the top ten, but it would also signal the last time he would step foot there. Christina Ricci and Jimmy Workman, who played Wednesday and Pugsley Addams, along with the rest of the cast, appeared in the video...
While "2 Legit 2 Quit" was peaking at #5, "Addams Groove" topped out at #7 in January of 1992. The record also climbed to #15 on Billboard's R&B chart. Internationally, due to its tie-in with the movie, did rather respectably, reaching the top ten in the UK (#4), Ireland (#4), Finland (#9), New Zealand (#9), France (#10), and Austria (#10). It also got to #12 in Australia, #16 in the Netherlands, and #21 in both Germany and Switzerland.
From this dumpster fire of a single, Hammer actually released one of his best records as his next single from 2 Legit 2 Quit, the gospel throwdown "Do Not Pass Me By" with Tramaine Hawkins. However, by this time Hammer fever was pretty much over for mainstream pop radio; while it peaked at #15 on the R&B chart, is stalled down at #62 on the pop Hot 100, but it scaled to #14 in the UK and #28 in the Netherlands. That was followed by the silly "This Is The Way We Roll", which topped out at #20 on the R&B chart but only got to #86 pop.
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Here's Hammer and his enormous posse performing "Addams Groove" live at the San Remo music festival in 1992...
And for those interested, here's the behind the scenes to see how Hammer blew his money on this video...
Up tomorrow: The Purple One talks about jewelry, perhaps.
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