Songoftheday 7/25/18 - I wear tight clothing and high heel shoes, it doesn't mean that I'm a prostitute...
from the album Funky Divas (1992)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16
Today's song of the day comes from the female vocal soul group En Vogue, whose landmark album Funky Divas had already scored a pair of big pop hits with "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" and a cover of Aretha Franklin's "Giving Him Something He Can Feel". In the summer of 1992, radio stations started to play another cover from the album, a take on the Beatles' "Yesterday", which went to go to #73 on the pop airplay chart and #29 on Billboard's R&B airplay tally. But that was quickly overshadowed by another track, the rock excursion of "Free Your Mind". Written and produced by the team of Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy, the song goes through scenarios pointing out the perils of prejudice, with stories of racial and classist misgivings. With a heavy rock guitar base (like Michael Jackson's "Beat It" and Janet Jackson's "Black Cat"), the song even got airplay on rock radio, and MTV was all over this clip...
"Free Your Mind" became En Vogue's third top ten hit from Funky Divas (and fourth overall at that point) in October of 1992. The song also climbed to #23 on Billboard's R&B chart, while the remixes of the track helped it climb to #39 on their Dance Club Play list. Internationally, the single reached the top-40 in New Zealand (#12), the Netherlands (#15), the UK (#16), Canada (#19), Ireland (#23), Sweden (#29), Belgium (#37), and Australia (#39). The music video, directed by Mark Romanek, would go on to nab three Moon-Men at the MTV Music Video Awards, for Best R&B video, Best Dance Video, and best Choreography. At the Grammy Awards in 1993, the song lost Best Duo/Group Rock performance to U2's Achtung Baby, and Best Music Video to Peter Gabriel's "Digging In The Dirt".
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"Free Your Mind" also appeared on the Summer Olympics "soundtrack" Barcelona Gold, with different lyrics as well as a modified video...
The quartet performed "Free Your Mind" with a stageful of hunks for the MTV Music Video Awards...
Here's a clip (sorry about the audio quality) from their Funky Divas tour...
...and again for the 1993 MTV Inaugural Rock and Roll Ball (along with "My Lovin'" and follow-up single "Give It Up, Turn It Loose")...
Kelly Clarkson got together with En Vogue for a 2007 performance...
In 2010, the musical comedy Glee "mashed up" "Free Your Mind" with the Supremes' "Stop In The Name Of Love", and the result reached the American top-40 at #38, went to #28 in Canada, and peaked at #61 in the UK....
Lastly, here's 2/4 of the Vogue with new member Rhona Barrett in 2016...
Up tomorrow: Emo-rap duo will perish without love.
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