Songoftheday 3/15/19 - As we dip in the melodic sea, Rhythm keeps flowin', an' Drip's the M.C....
from the album Hand On The Torch (1993)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #9 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 18
Today's song of the day comes from the rap-jazz fusion group US3, who were put together by British producers Geoff Wilkinson and Mel Simpson in London in the early 1990s. At first an underground act with samples of jazz records set to hip-hop verses on indie single releases, one of which got the attention of jazz label Blue Note records, who instead of pursuing legal action, rather commissioned Wilkinson to make an album using officially-sanctioned samples from the label archives. The first of those recording would be a song based on Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island", which not only provided the instrumental base, but also the name for the single, "Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)". With Gerard Presencer handling the trumpet parts, the ultra-cool single continued the faint line of success for the sub-genre that broke acts like Digible Planets and Guru...
"Cantaloop" became US3's first and only charting pop hit, reaching the top ten in March of 1994. The song also climbed to #21 on the R&B chart in Billboard magazine, while crossing over to #29 on their Modern Rock radio list. Internationally, the single was a sizable hit in Europe, making the top ten in Austria (#3) and Switzerland (#7), while hitting the top 40 in New Zealand (#16), the Netherlands (#18), Germany (#22), Belgium (#24), and Australia (#32). Surprisingly, the track originally missed the British charts. The second release from Hand On The Torch, "Tukka Yoot's Riddim", missed the charts in America, but became the act's first homeland hit at #34, and also hitting the top-40 in Austria (#24), Switzerland (#26), and New Zealand (#28). That British success caused "Cantaloop" to be re-released, this time climbing to #23 in the UK and #16 in Ireland. A third offering, "I Got It Goin' On", was a top-40 hit in New Zealand at #39 and a minor British hit at #52.
After dismissing everyone save himself, Wilkinson hired on a new set of musicians for US3's second album Broadway & 52nd. While it made no real impression in the States, only peaking at #90 on the R&B albums chart, single "Come On Everybody (Get Down)" landed the act another British top-40 hit at #38. US3 then left Blue Note Records and that sampling method for their third release, An Ordinary Day At An Unusual Place. From the set single "You Can't Hold Me Down" sneaked on to the British (#94) and Dutch (#98) chart. Since then, Wilkinson has released a series of albums under the US3 using various different musicians and rappers, the most recent being 2013's The Third Way (Hand On The Torch vol 2) in 2013.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
And here's US3 on Jon Stewart's talk show back in 1994...
and live in concert in 2005...
and lastly, back to 1994 for a French TV appearance...
Up tomorrow: Pop metal kings have some palpitations.
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