Songoftheday 3/28/21 - Full as a dam at capacity my passion's about to explode, I can't escape it's surrounding me I'm caught in a storm...

 

 

"Rain" - SWV

from the album Release Some Tension (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #25 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 5

 

Today's song of the day comes from the female R&B vocal trio SWV (Sisters With Voices), who returned to the pop top-40 in the summer of 1997 with the second single from their third album, "Someone" featuring Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs.  Another track from the record, "Lose My Cool" featuring the rapper Redman, was promoted to radio without being released as a proper commercial "single", and made it to #31 on Billboard magazine's R&B Airplay component of their chart (it wasn't able to place on the main "official list" as such). The next single released from set would be "Rain", written by producer Brian Alexander Morgan over a prominent anchor sample of jazz master Jaco Pastorius' "Portrait Of Tracy". The obtuse chord changes work well to set the standard neo-new jack track apart from the rest, as Coko, Taj, and Lelee equate their love to the gushing weather pattern...

"Rain" became SWV's eighth and so far final top-40 pop hit in April of 1998. The song also climbed to #7 on Billboard's R&B chart. 

The trio split shortly after the promotion cycle of the album, with Cheryl "Coko" Gamble setting out for a solo career. Her first disc alone, Hot Coko, was still on the RCA Label, but while the lead single "Sunshine" climbed to #19 on the R&B chart, it stalled down at #70 on the pop Hot 100 list. The album stopped at #68 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and by the time she went to record a second solo record, the label's soul division shut down. She released a trio of gospel albums in the 2000s independently, with Grateful reaching the #40 spot on the R&B Albums sales spot in 2006. In 2011, SWV reunited, and a year later they reemerged with their fourth studio album I Missed Us, which brought them back to the Billboard 200 top-40 at #25. Lead single "Co-Sign" rose to #48 on Billboard's R&B chart, and #10 on the older-skewing Adult R&B format list. They also had a reality show mini-season documenting their reunion. Their most recent record, Still, went to #11 on the R&B Albums chart in 2016 (and #80 pop), and spun off two top-20 Adult R&B hit with "Ain't No Man" (#13) and "MCE (Man Crush Everyday)" (#16). Their most recent chart appearance came in 2017 as a featured act on Bell Biv Devoe's single "Finally", which crested at #18 at Adult R&B.

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Here's the trio appearing on the Keenan Ivory Wayans talk show in 1997...

and finally live at the Apollo Theatre in New York...

Up tomorrow: Mogul turned rapper doesn't declare defeat.