Songoftheday 2/22/22 - Any other day I would call and you would say, baby how's your day but today it ain't the same...
"Say My Name" - Destiny's Child
from the album The Writing's On The Wall (1999)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 27
Today's song comes from the R&B group Destiny's Child, whose second album The Writing's On The Wall had already scored a #1 pop and R&B hit with "Bills, Bills, Bills" and a top-40 follow-up with "Bug A Boo". The third single had the act change producers from Kevin "Shakespear" Briggs to another "hot" newcomer, Rodney "Darkchild" Jenkins. Jenkins co-wrote "Say My Name" with brother Fred, LaShawn Daniels, and Destiny's Child members Beyonce Knowles, Kelly Rowland, LeToya Luckett, and LaTavia Roberson. In it, lead singer Beyonce confronts a suspected cheating lover on the phone, demanding he "say her name" to prove he wasn't there with another woman. Trouble with cheating was also brewing in Destiny's Child itself, as Luckett and Roberson, who felt (rightfully) sidelined by manager Matthew Knowles (who just happened to be Beyonce's philandering father) and were attempting to get new managers for themselves. In retaliation, Knowles (and complicitly Beyonce and Kelly) hired two new members, Michelle Williams and Farrah Franklin, to replace the pair for the music video for the song. So on a track that LeToya and LaTavia co-wrote and sang on, Williams and Franklin pulled a Milli Vanilli and lipsynched for their MTV lives, despite the fact that it was the other two's smiling faces on the single cover. I mean, those two didn't even know they were replaced until the MTV premiere of the video. Scandal! As for the song, it's expertly written, with the change in the tempo on the bridge leading to the chorus ingenious, but the stench of what happened to half the group will forever taint this from even considering it a "perfect" record...
Despite (or perhaps because) of the switch-up scandal, "Say My Name" became Destiny's Child's second #1 pop hit in March of 2000. The song also spent three weeks at the top of Billboard magazine's R&B Singles chart, while the dance remixes of the track done by the likes of Maurice Joshua helped it pop on to their Dance Club Play chart at #39. Internationally, the single went to #1 in Australia, and reached the top ten in Poland (#2), the UK (#3), Canada (#4), New Zealand (#4), The Netherlands (#7), Iceland (#7), Belgium (#7W/#19F), Norway (#8), and France (#10). At the Grammy Awards, "Say My Name" won two awards, Best R&B Duo/Group Performance and Best R&B Song, pretty damn shade since Luckett and Roberson contributed to both, while losing both Record of the Year to U2's "Beautiful Day" and Song of the Year to Macy Gray's "I Try".
Luckett and Roberson eventually settled their lawsuit against Knowles, and in the meantime had originally recorded together as a new group Anjel, though that never went anywhere (I don't trust Matthew didn't have a hand in that). Roberson sadly fell down a hole of depression and addiction, although she recently appeared on a season of the reality show R&B Divas: Atlanta. Luckett has been more lucky, releasing her debut solo album in 2006 which topped the Billboard 200 sales chart. She will also be back to this series, along with this album.
(8/10)
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The new lineup performed "Say My Name" on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 2000...
A separate remix of "Say My Name" was done by producer Tim "Timbaland" Mosley. Here they are on TV doing this version, which featured more of Kelly Rowland...
The group guested on Britney's Live In Hawaii extravaganza in 2000...
Up tomorrow: These southern woman are whisked off by the ranchers.
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