Songoftheday 8/25/21 - It could all be so simple but you'd rather make it hard, loving you is like a battleand we both end up with scars...

 

 

"Ex Factor" - Lauryn Hill

from the album The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #21 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 16

 

Today's song comes from Lauryn Hill, whose first solo retail single after leaving the Fugees, "Doo Wop (That Thing)", went all the way to #1 on the pop chart in the autumn of 1998.  Her follow-up single, "Ex-Factor", would bring things a little more personal. Allegedly about former bandmate and romantic partner Wyclef Jean, the self-written and self-produced single uses a sample of the Wu-Tang Clan's "Can It Be So Simple", their single from 1994 that went to #82 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart, and itself used a sample of Gladys Knight and the Pips' version of "The Way We Were", which went to #11 on the pop Hot 100 in 1975. Hill keeps in vague in the specifics, but the emotion about feeling neglected and knowing her love is doomed shines right through. The breezy backdrop reminds me of Minnie Riperton's "Lovin' You" as well...

"Ex Factor" became Lauryn's second top-40 hit on the Hot 100 from Miseducation in April of 1999. The song also climbed to #7 on Billboard's R&B chart. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in Iceland (#3), the UK (#4), and Belgium (#8W), and made the top-40 in Ireland (#19), Switzerland (#22), and the Netherlands (#40). Lauryn and the album will return to this series.

(6/10)

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In 1998, another song that appeared as a "hidden track" on Hill's debut made the top-40 of the airplay component of Billboard's Hot 100 (for some reason I completely forgot to have its SOTD moment). A cover of the Frankie Valli's pop classic from 1967, "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", Lauryn recorded it originally for the Mel Gibson movie Conspiracy Theory, though it wasn't on the official soundtrack. It reached #35 on the Hot 100 Airplay list in September of 1998. The song appeared on Billboard's R&B chart at #45 in 1999 as well. At the Grammy Awards in 2000, her version was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, which went to Celine Dion for her unstoppable Titanic dirge "My Heart Will Go On". However it was the first "hidden track" to nab a Grammy nomination...   (5/10)

Next up, Lauryn live in 1998...

 

 

 A record based on a sample beat already, "Ex-Factor" has factored into two big pop hits in 2018. First, Drake uses a sped up sample of Lauryn's breakdown in the late bridge of her song for the anchor to his #1 hit "Nice For What"...

Also that year, rapper Cardi B uses "Ex Factor" for her #11 pop hit "Be Careful"...

And lastly, Lauryn live in 2013, turning "Ex Factor" into a reggae jam...

 

 Up tomorrow: Amusement park band finally makes good, beyond fathoming.