Songoftheday 1/18/19 - Standing across the room I saw you smile, I said I want to talk to you for a little while...
from the album Bad Boys (1993)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #16 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16
Today's song of the day comes from the Jamaican reggae band Inner Circle, who landed a top ten pop hit in America in the summer of 1993 with "Bad Boys", which had gained massive exposure from being used as the theme song for the highly-popular syndicated police ride-along show that was the grandfather of all reality shows. Capitalizing on this momentum, the group re-released a song they originally had a big international hit with in 1992 before "Bad Boys" was released. "Sweat (A La La La La Long)", written by brothers Ian and Roger Lewis with bandmate Touter Harvey, was originally the lead single from the European version of the album, Bad To The Bone. The sunny, lilting song conceals a quite lascivious lyric about sexing a girl up so much she can't even speak. Nevertheless, the soothing harmonies and singable chorus led by singer Calton Coffie meant mainstream success...
"Sweat" became Inner Circle's second (and to date) last top-40 pop hit in October of 1993. The song also climbed to #73 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart. Internationally, on the first release of the single back in 1992, "Sweat" spent 12 weeks at #1 in Germany, six weeks on top in Switzerland, 4 weeks at #1 in the Netherlands, and three weeks on top in Belgium. It also got to #2 in Sweden and Austria, and #8 in Norway. A year later along with its American success, "Sweat" went to #1 in New Zealand for four weeks, as well and hitting #2 in Australia, and #3 in both Ireland and the UK (the latter originally had "Sweat" peaking right under the top-40 the previous year). A third single was released from Bad Boys, "Rock With You" (not to be confused with the Michael Jackson disco jam), which went to #98 in America, but got to a respectable #13 in New Zealand.
The following year, Inner Circle returned with the album Reggae Dancer, the last to feature Coffie as lead singer. The first single, a cover of Joe South's southern rock gem "Games People Play", was a minor hit in the U.S. at #84, but was much more successful internationally, peaking in the top ten in New Zealand (#4), Sweden (#7), Switzerland (#7), and the Netherlands (#8). The album also garnered a second Grammy nomination, which Bad Boys won the year prior. After Coffie left the band, they recruited Kris Bentley, and in 1996, they had a top ten hit in New Zealand with the title song from their Da Bomb album. Re-released in America as Speak My Language, the reworked album claimed their most recent minor pop hit with "Not About Romance". They have since continued to record and tour with the Lewis brothers and Harvey still in; their most recent album, Tenement Yard, arrived in 2015.
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Here's the band in the 1990's live in Australia...
In 2010, Deutschland sucht den Superstar (German Idol) winner Mehrzad Marashi released a cover of "Sweat" as his second single. Featuring another Deutschland sucht den Superstar winner, Mark Medlock, the song climbed all the way to #2 in Germany, and hit #7 in Austria and #16 in Switzerland...
And lastly, live from a concert in 2011
Up tomorrow: Funky rock band hits the circus courtesy of some Coneheads.
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