Robbed hit of the week 6/22/20 - Gina Thompson's "The Things That You Do"...
from the album Nobody Does It Better (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #41
This week's "robbed hit" comes from R&B singer Gina Thompson, who grew up in southern New Jersey before starting her music career with producer Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, who connected her with rapper/songwriter Missy Elliott. Elliott has a big featured role in Gina's debut single, "The Things That You Do", but wasn't given label credit for the song she co-wrote with Rodney Jerkins and Daron Jones. However, Missy does come through strong on the music video, helping to pave the way for her own breakthrough later on...
Although "The Things That You Do" climbed to #12 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart, spending 29 weeks on the list, the single stalled at the dreaded #41 position on their pop Hot 100 chart for three weeks in September of 1996. Gina's debut Nobody Does It Better album missed the Billboard 200 sales chart, but did manage to place at #36 on their R&B Albums tally.
Thompson returned the following year with the single "You Bring The Sunshine" from the NBA at 50 TV soundtrack, but when it underperformed at #53 on the R&B chart, and only "bubbling under" the pop Hot 100 at #122, she was bounced from Mercury to East/West Records. There she began to record her sophomore album If You Only Knew. But when lead single "Ya Di Ya", this time officially crediting Missy Elliott, stopped at #38 at R&B and again "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 at #124, the album was only put in limited release and Gina was again let go. She's been recording music since and released her latest album, Missing You, in 2009. Each one of her three charting singles was solid, and she really deserved better.
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And here's Gina and a still-yet-to be big Missy Elliott performing the single live on TV in 1996.
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