Songoftheday 3/26/18 - You keep holding on to your thoughts of rejection, if you're with me you're secured...
from the album Meant To Be Mint (1991)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16
Today's song of the day comes from the R&B band Mint Condition, who came together in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area as schoolmates in the mid-80s (Roger Troutman of Zapp's son was an early member). With lead singer and drummer Stokely Williams and an actual band of players (O'Dell would be on guitar, Keri "future Mr. Toni Braxton" Lewis and Lawrence Waddell on keyboards, Ricky Kinchen on bass, and Jeffrey Allen with the saxophone), the group was signed to Janet Jackson producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis' Perspective Records, where they would record their debut album Meant To Be Mint. It was produced by another former member of The Time, Jellybean Johnson, along with the band themselves. Just like another contemporary soul group just getting started, Jodeci, their company decided to release a new jack swing track, "Are You Free", as the lead single, but besides becoming a minor R&B hit at #55, the song missed the pop chart altogether (I personally adored the song, but maybe it was a bit "busy" for pop radio. Rebounding with a ballad (just like Jodeci's "Forever My Lady"), the Condition released "Breakin' My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes)", which featured their tight harmonies in a slower pace, and it became the biggest hit of their career together. Allen's sax solo is a highlight here...
"Breakin' My Heart" became Mint Condition's sole top ten pop hit in April of 1992. The single also spent three weeks at #3 on Billboard's R&B chart (they would have higher-charting hits at that format). Internationally, the single was a minor hit in Canada at #55. A third single from the Meant To Be Mint album, "Forever In My Eyes", had the same swingin' beat, and a music video that continued the storyline of their big hit, and while it climbed to #7 on the R&B chart, it stopped down at #81 on the pop Hot 100.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the band performing the song live on TV (I believe it's The Tonight Show)...
...and from a more recent concert, where they are throwin'. it. down.
Up tomorrow: It's not over 'til the beauty queen sings.
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