Songoftheday 10/19/18 - I've become amused I've become blind I've become what I know not breathes, you seem illiterate to all my emotions...
from the album The Bliss Album... (1993)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 19
Today's song of the day comes from the alternative hip-hop duo from New Jersey, P.M. Dawn, who had landed a huge hit from the soundtrack from the Eddie Murphy movie Boomerang in the dreamy "I'd Die Without You" in the autumn of 1992. Brothers Attrell (Prince Be) and Jarrett Cordes would also include that song in their second full-length album release The Bliss Album which came out in the spring of the following year. The next single pulled from the record would copy the formula they used to go to #1 with on their breakthrough hit "Set Adrift On Memory Bliss", using a prominent sample of a recent song to provide the base for the record. This time out it would be George Michael's 1987 track "Father Figure" that would anchor "Looking Through Patient Eyes", with lyrics written by Attrell. British singer Cathy Dennis would help in singing the chorus for the track...
"Looking Through Patient Eyes" became P.M. Dawn's fourth and final top-40 pop hit in the U.S., reaching the top ten in May of 1993. The song became the first to reach Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio format chart, climbing to #31, while also crossing over to their R&B chart at #62. Internationally, the single topped the singles chart in Canada for one week, and hit the top-40 in the UK (#11), New Zealand (#11), Ireland (#14), and Australia (#20).
After the success of this song, things got a little off kilter. In the UK, their beautiful collaboration with Boy George of Culture Club, "More Than Likely", was released, scoring them another top-40 hit at #40. Meanwhile, in the U.S. and Canada the Joni Mitchell-sampling "The Ways Of The Wind" was released; it stalled out at #54, but in Canada it did better, peaking at #24.
In 1995, the duo returned with their third record, Jesus Wept. Departing even further from the soul and hip hop from their previous work, nevertheless the pair landed their sole rock radio hit with "Downtown Venus", which got to #39 on Billboard's Modern Rock radio list, while almost reaching the pop top-40 at #48. Three years later, they contributed a song to the soundtrack to the David Spade/Marlon Wayans movie Senseless; the result, "Gotta Be...Movin' On Up", stiffed in America, but did decent business internationally, reaching the top 20 in Belgium (#12), Australia (#13), and France (#18). That was followed later in the year by their fourth effort, Dearest Christian, I'm So Very Sorry for Bringing You Here. Love, Dad. Trying to recapture the success of "I'd Die Without You", they put out the lush "I Had No Right", but again they just missed the top-40 at #44 (and hitting #82 R&B). In 2000, remixes of a track they recorded for the Joni Mitchell tribute album A Case Of Joni, "Night In The City", became their most recent chart success in America, peaking at #15.
In 2005, Prince Be suffered a stroke that would leave him partially paralyzed; nevertheless Attrell and Jarrett appeared on the "comeback" show Baby Hit Me One More Time, winning the series, but they couldn't capitalize on the success, with Jarrett being fired for sexual assault and Attrell finally succumbing to illness in 2016. His cousin Doc G (Gregory Carr) continues to attempt to perform and record under the PM Dawn Name.
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Here's the Cordes brothers appearing on Soul Train in 1993...
And live to track on Top Of The Pops...
And finally, live with a band on the British show Saturday Zoo...
Up tomorrow: New York rap legends hang with the royals.
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