Songoftheday 10/24/20 - Givin' my babies all of my money but my diamonds steady be shinin', my gang you know me homies got mo' love...

 

 

"Look Into My Eyes" - Bone Thugs-N-Harmony

from the albums Batman & Robin (Original Soundtrack) and The Art Of War (both 1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 12

 

Today's song of the day comes from the Cleveland-based rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, who followed up their massive #1 pop hit "Tha Crossroads" with a contribution to the soundtrack to the movie Set It Off, "Days Of Our Livez", which made the top-40 of Billboard magazine's Hot 100 Airplay chart in the autumn of 1996. The following year, Crazy, Lazy,, Bizzy, Wish, and Flesh-N-Bone returned with a track from another movie, this time the fourth installment in Warner Brothers' reboot of the Batman superhero franchise, Batman & Robin, with George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell as the titular characters. The previous movie, Batman Forever, had a hugely successful soundtrack, with four songs reaching the pop charts, including the #1 "Kiss From A Rose" from Seal. This time out, the first song released was the alt-dance song "Fun For Me" from Moloko, which got to #4 on Billboard magazine's Dance Club Play list in the spring of 1997. Next promoted to radio came the raging "The End Is The Beginning Is The End" from the Smashing Pumpkins, which reached both the Alternative (#4) and Mainstream Rock (#12) radio charts, missed the pop Hot 100 top-40 at #50 (hurt by not being released as a single), and eventually going on to win a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. The third "single", "Look Into My Eyes", was written by the group with Tim Middleton and was based on a sample of an Isley Brothers track. With the movie making major bank, the single went along for the ride and returned the Bones to the pop top ten...

"Look Into My Eyes" became Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's fourth top-40 pop hit (and second to make the top ten) in June of 1997. The song made the same rank on Billboard's R&B chart as well, while getting to #2 on their Rap Singles list. Internationally, the single peaked at #3 in New Zealand, and landed at #16 in the UK. The Batman & Robin soundtrack, which spun off two more top-40 pop hits, rose to #5 on the Billboard 200 sales list, going on to sell over a million copies. "Look Into My Eyes" would also appear on the group's own third full-length album The Art Of War, a double disc set that went to #1 on the albums chart a month later (their second and final #1 record).

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Here's the group appearing on the Keenan Ivory Wayans show to promote the single...

and lastly, live in concert...

Up tomorrow: Rapper tells you not to frown.