Songoftheday 10/7/21 - Never seen a sun shine like this, never seen the moon glow like this...

 

 

"Fortunate" - Maxwell

From the album Life (Original Soundtrack) (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 21

 

Today's song comes from Maxwell, a pioneer in the "neo-soul" movement that played a big part in R&B music since the 1990s. He landed a top-40 pop hit in the fall of 1996 with "Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder)", from hit debut album Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite. The singer/songwriter followed with a live album recorded for MTV Unplugged the following year, which sold over a half million copies. Maxwell's sophomore studio effort, Embrya, arrived in 1998, strayed away from the jazzy R&B that marked the neo-soul movement to more of a bridge between soul and electronica, which gave him a broader audience with rock radio listeners but not necessarily with his core fanbase. While the record became his first top ten placing on the Billboard 200 sales tally at #3, selling over a million copies, lead single "Luxury: Cococure" stopped at #16 on Billboard magazine's R&B Airplay list (since it wasn't released as a single, it wasn't eligible for the main R&B chart or the pop Hot 100). Follow-up "Matrimony: Maybe You" was put out as a commercial single, put stalled down at #79 on the R&B chart. Nevertheless, the latter song was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Performance, losing to Stevie Wonder for his ringer "St. Louis Blues". The Embrya album also was up for Best R&B Album, which went home with Lauryn Hill for her unstoppable Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. 

Instead of continuing to mine the Embrya album for radio, Maxwell contributed a separate song to the soundtrack of the comedy Life starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. The result, "Fortunate", wasn't written by the artist, but by producer (and artist and now felon in his own right) R. Kelly. Kelly's imprint is clearly on this track, which sounds more like one of his own records than fitting on Maxwell's (probably why it didn't appear on any of his own releases). A bedroom grinder that relies on a hella ton of rhyming phrases, it has Kelly's sing-song phrasing on the verses, made more palatable by Maxwell's powerful higher register. And Kelly's style was dominating radio in those days, so it was a natural as a single, where it was released as the second offering from the soundtrack after ex-Jodeci brothers K-Ci & Jo-Jo's "Life" title track, which went to #15 on the R&B chart and #60 on the pop Hot 100. But "Fortunate" proved to be the preferred song for fans, who made it not only the biggest success from the movie, but Maxwell's biggest "pop" hit of his career, although I have to say the simplistic melody and lyrics are overshadowed by Maxwell's singing performance...

"Fortunate" became Maxwell's first and so far only top ten pop hit in America in May of 1999. The song was massive on urban radio, spending two months (eight weeks) at #1 on Billboard's R&B chart. The Life soundtrack, released in March of that year, peaked at #10 on the Billboard 200 sales list, going on to sell over a million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2000, "Fortunate" was nominated for Best R&B Male Vocal Performance, which soul titan Barry White won for his "Staying Power".

The song "New Day" from ex-Fugee Wyclef Jean and U2's Bono from the Life soundtrack was released as a single internationally but not in the U.S.. It made the top ten in Italy (#2), Iceland (#3), and Belgium (#8), and reached #12 in Ireland and #23 in the UK. (It's horrid.) Meanwhile, Kelly Price's "It's Gonna Rain", also written by R. Kelly, climbed to #51 on Billboard's R&B chart. (It's an improvement.) Another cut from the Life soundtrack, "What Would You Do?" by City High, would end up being reworked and promoted as the group's first single from their own debut album, and that version will be in an upcoming SOTD installment. As for Maxwell, he will also return to this series.

(5/10)

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Here's Maxwell performing "Fortunate" live on the Tonight Show in 1999...

And lastly, in concert in 2014...

Up tomorrow: Vegas trio ask about their friends.