Songoftheday 3/11/20 - Listen girl you want me but he needs you, yet you're tellin' me that everything is cool...
from the album R. Kelly (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16
Today's song of the day comes from soul singer/songwriter/producer R. Kelly, who by the mid 1990s was one of the biggest stars on urban and pop radio, and the lead single from his self-titled third album, "You Remind Me Of Something", raced into the top five on the pop chart and #1 R&B in the fall of 1995. Three more songs from the record entered Billboard magazine's R&B Airplay chart without being released as singles: "Baby. Baby. Baby. Baby. Baby" went all the way to #28, "(You To Be) Happy" peaked at #46, and "Trade In My Life" got to #50 and stayed on the airplay chart for a respectable 24 weeks. For the second physical release from the record, Kelly brought in two veterans of R&B music, Ronald and Ernie Isley from the Isley Brothers. The single, "Down Low (Nobody Has To Know)", was a slow and salacious look at a lover creepin' around, though as opposed to what the gay black community knows that term to mean, this was intentionally made towards a female. Nevertheless, the song caught up and rose back up the charts, and a high-end music video got MTV on board as well...
"Down Low" became the second top five pop hit from R. Kelly in March of 1996. The song, like its predecessor, topped Billboard magazine's R&B chart for seven weeks. Internationally, the single reached the top-40 in the UK (#23) and New Zealand (#20).
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In 2017, neo-soul singer the Weeknd recorded a cover of the song for Drake's OVO Sound Radio channel...
Up tomorrow: Canadian soul singer has a romantic question.
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