Songoftheday 1/26/20 - Don't consider me a minority, open up your eyes and maybe you'll see...
from the album Ain't Nuthin' But A She Thing (Various Artists) (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #38 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 3
Today's song of the day comes from the female rap trio Salt-N-Pepa, who had just enjoyed the biggest album of their career in 1993 with Very Necessary, which spun off a pair of top ten pop hits with "Shoop" and "Whatta Man", along with the song that won them their only Grammy, "None Of Your Business". In 1995 Salt, Pepa, and DJ Spinderella contributed a track to the benefit album Ain't Nuthin' But A She Thing, which included songs from Annie Lennox, Melissa Etheridge, Vanessa Williams, and more. Their track, written by Salt, titled the album, and landed the group their most recent top-40 pop hit...
"Ain't Nuthin' But A She Thing" reached the American pop top-40 in November of 1995. The song also climbed to #32 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart. Internationally, the single was a minor hit in Australia (#63).
The following year, they contributed a song to the Adam Sandler movie Bulletproof. While "Champagne" wasn't released as a single, it gained enough urban radio airplay to climb to #37 on Billboard's R&B Airplay chart. It also nabbed a Grammy nomination for Best Duo/Group rap performance (While this was going on, the trio were separating professionally (and in the case of Salt, romantically), and signed to Red Ant, a start-up offshoot of Polygram Records. Their first album under their hyped contract, Brand New, didn't do as well as they'd probably have hoped. First, they tried to promote lead track "R U Ready" to radio without releasing it as a commercial single; it ended up stalling down at #61 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart while doing a bit better on the R&B Airplay list at #26. (Both were top-40 hits in Britain, however.) Meanwhile, the Brand New album got as high as #37. They did release a single for "Gitty Up", which did do better, but by then going to #50 pop and #31 R&B. And also by then Red Ant went belly up. In 1999, that song was "mashed up" with Pink Floyd's "The Wall" as "The Brick Track Versus Gitty Up", which got to #22 in the UK and #4 in Norway and #16 in Australia. Since then while they show up to tour from time to time, they haven't released any new material. They announced they dropped Spinderella from the lineup last year.
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And here's the trio appearing live on TV for an awards show...
Up tomorrow: Alt-rockers talk about insect ammunition?
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