Robbed hit of the week 7/5/21 - P.M. Dawn's "I Had No Right"...

 

 

"I Had No Right" - P.M. Dawn

from the album Dearest Christian, I'm So Very Sorry For Bringing You Here. Love, Dad (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #44 (three weeks)

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from the alternative-R&B duo P.M. Dawn, whose second album The Bliss Album...? had landed a pair of top ten pop hits with "I'd Die Without You" and "Looking Through Patient Eyes".  However, the lead single from their third effort Jesus Wept, "Downtown Venus", stalled at the halfway mark on Billboard magazine's pop Hot 100 chart in 1995. Three years later, brothers Prince Be and DJ Minutemix returned with their fourth and final studio album for Gee Street/Polygram, Dearest Christian, I'm So Very Sorry For Bringing You Here. Love, Dad. The first single from the set was a ballad "I Had No Right". Written by Prince Be with Clark Anderson, the dreamy and solemn track bears a good resemblance to "I'd Die Without You", as he sings in vague picturesque language to someone about regretting their current place in life, alluding to sadness and a hurt that he feels he should go alone for. It's quite beautiful in its poetry, and the music video (and the album title) made it more clear that Be is singing to his baby son...

"I Had No Right" missed the pop top-40 by a few notches in October of 1998. The song also climbed to #82 on Billboard's R&B chart. Internationally, the single spent a solitary week at #97 on the British singles chart. The Dearest Christian... album, released in October of that year as the single was peaking, missed the pop and R&B albums sales chart.

(8/10)