Songoftheday 4/17/21 - I can't remember why we fell apart from something that was so meant to be, forever was the promise in our hearts now more and more I wonder where you are...

 

 

"Anytime" - Brian McKnight

from the album Anytime (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart

Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #6 (four weeks)

Weeks in the Airplay Top-40: 35

 

Today's song of the day comes from soul singer Brian McKnight, who had returned to the pop top 20 in America in the autumn of 1997 with "You Should Be Mine (Don't Waste My Time)", the lead single from his third studio album Anytime. The second song from the record promoted to radio was the title track, written by McKnight with Brandon Barnes, who would go on to be the drummer for hard rock band Rise Against. Produced by Brian himself, the track has him speaking psychically to a past love to ask if they still think about him as he does about them. The music video takes this a bit more literally, as she seemingly invades his apartment for a time...

Since "Anytime" wasn't released as a commercially-available "single", it wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official pop or R&B charts. But the song got such massive radio love that it reached the top ten on the airplay component of the pop Hot 100 in May of 1998. It was his biggest urban radio hit, spending a month (four weeks) at #1 on the R&B Airplay list. Internationally, the single made it to #20 in Canada, and peaked at #48 in the UK. At the Grammy Awards in 1999, "Anytime" was nominated for Best Pop Male Vocal Performance, losing out to Eric Clapton for his schmaltzy "My Father's Eyes".

(6/10)

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Here's Brian performing the song on the Donny & Marie talk show in 1998...

Next up, an acoustic take from his Music In High Places DVD in 2001...

 

 And finally live in concert in 2016...

Up tomorrow: Superstar sister seems so solemnly solo.