Songoftheday 8/24/19 - I don't want to rain on this parade, but I'm starting to question the love that was made...

Brownstone - "If You Love Me"
from the album From The Bottom Up (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #8 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 22

Today's song of the day comes from the female soul vocal trio Brownstone, who were put together in the early 1990s in Los Angeles for a project for Michael Jackson's "vanity" label MJJ Records. Comprised of Maxee (Charmayne Maxwell), Mimi (Monica Doby), and Nicci (Nichole Gilbert), the group released their debut single "Pass The Lovin'" in the summer of 1994. The track made it to #58 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart and #42 on the Dance Club Play list, but missed the pop Hot 100 altogether. But their second release did much, much better. "If You Love Me", written by Nicci along with Gordon Chambers and producer Dave Hall, was a midtempo lite-new-jack jam that had a chorus that just stuck in your head. It became their breakthrough and biggest pop hit...

"If You Love Me" climbed in the top ten on Billboard's American pop chart in February of 1995. The song also spent two weeks at #2 on their R&B chart, while crossing over to #38 on their Adult Contemporary radio list. Internationally, the single topped the singles chart in New Zealand for five weeks, and peaked at #8 in the UK. It also reached the top 40 in Australia (#13), Ireland (#15), the Netherlands (#16), and France (#18). Brownstone were nominated for a Grammy Award in 1996 for Best R&B Duo/Group Performance, losing out to TLC's "Creep"...

The third single from From The Bottom Up, the downtempo nugget "Grapevyne", was a pretty big R&B hit, peaking at #6, but it missed the top-40 closely, stopping at #49. (It did much better overseas, climbing to #16 in Britain and #15 in New Zealand.) That was followed by a cover of the Eagles' soft-rock ballad "I Can't Tell You Why", which went to #54 in the US (#22 on the R&B list), while making it to #6 in New Zealand at #27 in the UK. But by that time, "Mimi" had left the group to be replaced by Kina Cosper by the time of their next album.

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The song was released in different mixes to appeal to various format stations. One of the biggest was the hip-hop version featuring rapper Craig Mack...