Songoftheday 12/5/20 - And you're the only one who makes me come runnin', 'cause what you got is far beyond compare...

 

 

"Honey" - Mariah Carey

from the album Butterfly (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 18

 

Today's song of the day is from Mariah Carey, whose fifth album Daydream had scored a trio of #1 pop hits with "Fantasy", "Always Be My Baby", and their record-breaking duet with Boyz II Men, "One Sweet Day", which stayed on top of the pop chart for 16 weeks, a record that held until just this past year. A fourth track from the album, "Forever", wasn't released as a single but made the top ten of the pop radio airplay chart as well in the summer of 1996. A year later, Mariah returned in a totally different place, having separated from husband (and record company head) Tommy Mottola, and the singer wanting to expand her musical palette to incorporate the R&B/hip hop sounds she craved. Although half of her next album Butterfly would still be co-produced with Walter Afanasieff, who had helped craft most of her adult contemporary pop hits, Mariah branched out with more "hip" and at times sensual themes and backdrops. That would be evident with her first single "Honey", which was helmed by Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs along with his sidekick Stevie J and A Tribe Called Quest rapper/producer Q-Tip. Eschewing the blatant recognizable sample like her previous album-leaders, "Honey" was based on a foundation of a sample of two more obscure songs; "Hey DJ", a top-20 R&B hit from the World's Famous Supreme Team rap group, and "Body Rock" from The Treacherous Three, both from 1984. With a big-budget music video that played like an action movie, Carey continued her domination on the pop landscape...

"Honey" became the third single from Carey to make its debut at #1 in September of 1997. The song spent two weeks at #2 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart (surprising considering the shift in style that it didn't top the list), while the dance remixes of the song from David Morales helped it land Mariah's sixth #1 Dance Club Play hit. Internationally, the single topped the chart in Canada, and made the top ten in the UK (#3), New Zealand (#3), Spain (#4), Sweden (#8), Australia (#8), and Italy (#10). It also reached the top-40 in Finland (#12), the Netherlands (#15), Denmark (#17), Ireland (#19), Switzerland (#23), Iceland (#26), Belgium (#29W/#30F), Germany (#38), France (#39), and Austria (#39). The Butterfly album spent two weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales chart in America, going on to sell over three million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 1998,  "Honey" was nominated for Best R&B Female Performance, losing to Erykah Badu's debut "On & On", and for Best R&B Song, which R. Kelly took home for "I Believe I Can Fly".

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As with a growing number of Carey's singles, a remix that totally transformed the song also got major airplay, and this one featured rappers Puff Daddy, Mase and The Lox, and a new cut of the video was even done...

Here's the David Morales Club Mix that helped the song top the dance chart for a week...

Next up is Mariah live in her Around The World show in 1998...

and lastly, on her Adventures of Mimi tour in 2006...

Up tomorrow: Soul crooner declares his intent for time management.