Songoftheday 1/24/22 - In my heart there is a love that's yearning for you, let me know if you feel the same this yearning that I do...

 

 

"If You Love Me" - Mint Condition

from the albums Woo (Original Soundtrack) (1998) and Life's Aquarium (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #30 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 5

 

Today's song comes from the R&B group Mint Condition, whose third album Definition Of A Band  in 1996 had spun off two top-40 crossover pop hits with "What Kind Of Man Would I Be" and "You Don't Have To Hurt No More".  However their record company, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis' boutique label Perspective, folded, and the band eventually signed on with Elektra Records. In the meantime, they contributed a song to the soundtrack to the movie Woo in 1998, "If You Love Me", that would be released as the lead single for their next album Life's Aquarium a year later. Written by Mint Condition's keyboardist Keri Lewis, the song sounds like an album cut from a decent soul band from the 80's that might have made the cut for a third or fourth single. Their performance is good, especially lead singer Stokley Williams, and it sounds like a real band instead of a studio concoction, but the melody and lyrics are kind of uninspired, as it plods along....

"If You Love Me" became Mint Condition's fifth and final top-40 pop hit in November of 1999. The song climbed to #5 on Billboard magazine's R&B Singles chart, while peaking at #3 on their older-skewing Adult R&B radio format list. The Life's Aquarium album, released in November as the single was cresting, went to #68 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and was their highest-charting success on the R&B Albums list at #7.

The second single from the record was the oddly-titled "Is This Pain Our Pleasure", written by Lewis and Williams. The mid-tempo jam missed the R&B top-40 at #42, while missing the pop Hot 100 altogether. 

It would be a long six years before Mint Condition resurfaced on indie imprint Caged Bird for their next album Livin' The Luxury Brown. Keri Lewis, who was married to Toni Braxton at the time, left the band to concentrate on her career, leaving Stokley as the primary songwriter of the act. Two minor hits from the record were released, with the biggest of them, "I'm Ready", stalling at #49 on the R&B chart, though it did climb to #7 on Billboard's Adult R&B radio list.

 

Since then, the group has released four studio albums and a live record on the Caged Bird label. In 2011, their appropriately-titled 7 album became their first and only top-40 hit on the Billboard 200 at #33, helped by their most recent top-40 R&B Singles hit, "Not Your Daddy" with Kelly Price. That single was nominated for two Grammys, for Best R&B Performance (losing to Corinne Bailey Rae for her "Is This Love") and Best R&B Song (which went to Cee Lo Green and Melanie Fiona for their collab "Fool For You"). Their latest minor R&B Singles hit, "Believe In Us", went to #64 in 2012, almost reaching the top ten on the Adult R&B list at #11.

 

Mint Condition's most recent album, the Christmas set Healing Season, came out in 2015. That record earned the group their first Grammy nomination for Best R&B Album in 2017, losing out to Lalah Hathaway for her Lalah Hathaway Live release. The title track went to #27 on Billboard's Adult R&B radio chart. 

In 2017, Stokley released his debut solo album Introducing Stokley, followed by Sankofa in 2020. 

(5/10)

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Here's the band performing "If You Love Me" on Live At The Apollo...

and lastly, at a televised concert...

Up tomorrow: The Fresh Prince brings in the Willennium (that didn't happen).