Songoftheday 2/6/19 - Last night I saw you standing and I started, started pretending I knew you and you knew me too...

"Can We Talk" - Tevin Campbell
from the album I'm Ready (1993)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #9 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 23

(Wow, we've gotten ourselves into the first song to "peak" in 1994 after 2443 "songs of the day". Time is flying.)

Today's song of the day comes from R&B singer Tevin Campbell, who with a little help from mentors Prince and Quincy Jones, made a splash with his debut album T.E.V.I.N. in 1991. That record spun off seven singles that made the charts in Billboard magazine, with two of them reaching the pop top-40 - "Round And Round" and his first and biggest top ten pop hit "Tell Me What You Want Me To Do". In 1993, still a teen at 16 years old but more mature than his years, Tevin returned with his second album I'm Ready. Overseen by Quincy and label guru Benny Medina, the album evolved his voice and sound without having to act "street" or crude. The first single from the record was the lush ballad "Can We Talk", which was produced by Babyface, who wrote the song with Daryl Simmons. Singing about the hesitation and then daringness to approach the woman of his dreams, the track is a lot more nuanced than most of the come-on R&B hits of the day...

"Can We Talk" became Tevin's second top ten pop hit in January of 1994. The song was his biggest success on Billboard's R&B chart, becoming his fourth (and so far last) #1 hit, and spending three weeks at the summit. Internationally, the single was a top-40 hit in Australia (#12) and New Zealand (#26), while landing a minor hit in Canada at #50. At the Grammy Awards in 1994, "Can We Talk" was nominated for best R&B Male Vocal Performance, which went to Ray Charles for "A Song For You". The following year, the I'm Ready album was also up for Best R&B Album, which went to II from Boyz II Men.

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Here's Tevin performing on Arsenio Hall to promote the single...