Songoftheday 9/22/21 - Teacher there are things that I don't want to learn, and the last one I had made me cry...

 

 

"One More Try" - Divine

from the album Fairy Tales (1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #29 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 3

 

Today's song comes from the female R&B vocal trio Divine, who went straight to #1 on the pop chart in America in the autumn of 1998 with their debut single "Lately".  Their second (and what would be their last) single was a cover of a #1 pop hit from exactly ten years prior. "One More Try", written, produced, and sung by the late great George Michael, hit the top spot in May of 1988. Divine's version, produced by Josh Howcott and Donald Parks, is merely a karaoke copy of the song, neither bringing anything new to the table nor showing anything exciting beyond adequate harmonies from Kia Thornton, Nikki Bratcher and Tonia Tash, The production even sounds dated more than George's own work from a decade ago. The result is something that if anything influenced the caged singing on shows like American Idol, The Voice, and most appropriately, X Factor...

Still, with the momentum of coming off of the #1 hit, Divine's "One More Try" became their second top-40 pop hit in April of 1999. The song also rose to #13 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart. After a third single, "Let It Go", tanked, and label Red Ant was going under, and they faded from the music world's mainstream. Kia's been on American Idol, of course, but even their music has been erased from the collective, as it isn't available for streaming or purchase. 

(4/10)

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Here's the trio performing both "Lately" and "One More Try" for a TV program, proving that they had vocal chops, but were hindered by their material and production...

Up tomorrow: Another new kid provides.