Songoftheday 12/13/20 -t's all because of you I'm never sad and blue, you've brightened up my days in your own special way...

 

 

"Everything" - Mary J. Blige

from the album Share My World (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #24 (four weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 10

 

Today's song of the day comes from R&B singer Mary J. Blige, whose third album Share My World had already landed a top-40 pop/top-10 soul hit with "I Can Love You" in the summer of 1997 (the record also includes her #2 pop hit from the Waiting To Exhale soundtrack, "Not 'Gon Cry"). Another track from the album, "It's On" featuring R.Kelly, got enough radio airplay in the spring of that year to go to #48 on Billboard magazine's R&B Airplay chart. The next song from the record released as a physical single would be "Everything", which interpolated the Stylistics soul classic "You Are Everything", as well as the melody from 60s #1 "Sukiyaki" from Japanese pop star Kyu Sakamoto and a sample of the percussion/bass from "The Payback" from James Brown, giving the writers of all three songs credit along with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. A joyous celebration of love, it fit in with the more uplifting nature of most of the album...

"Everything" became the third top-40 pop hit from Share My World in October of 1997. The song also rose to #5 on Billboard's R&B chart. Internationally, the single peaked at #6 in the UK, and was a top-40 hit in New Zealand (#13) and Iceland (#36). 

Blige's next song promoted to radio was "Missing You", which had some success on urban radio in the summer, and was revived again following the success of "Everything", and the release of a live album. The track wasn't released as a commercial single in America, but was able to reach #23 on the R&B Airplay chart. In Britain, where it was released as a separate single, the song went to #19. That was followed by "Seven Days", which again was not put out to make people buy the album; the track was a big hit on urban radio, spending a week at #3 on Billboard's R&B Airplay chart and getting to #71 on the Hot 100 pop airplay list, while in the UK it gave Mary her fourth top-40 hit from Share My World at #22. Also during that time, Blige's cover of DeBarge's soul nugget "A Dream" for the movie Money Talks spent over a half-year (27 weeks) on the R&B Airplay list, cresting at #16. 

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There was a "So So Def" remix from producer Jermaine Dupri's team that totally changed the structure of the song altogether and featured a rap interlude and sported its own music video...

Here's Mary appearing on the kids sketch show All That singing "Everything"...

and lastly, performing live on stage for another TV gig for the Keenan Ivory Wayans show...

Up tomorrow: R&B trio head for the dairy aisle.