Songoftheday 3/21/22 - Games, changes and fears when will they go from here, when will they stop?

 

 

"I Try" - Macy Gray

from the album On How Life Is (1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 23

 

Today's song comes from R&B artist Macy Gray, who was born Natalie McIntyre in Ohio, though she took her recording moniker from something she called herself as a child. After a couple false starts Gray landed a record deal with Epic in 1998, where she recorded her debut album On How Life Is. The first single from the record, "Do Something",  was a beautiful slice of alternative soul, using hip-hop beats and flower-power ideology that sported a music video from Mark Romanek that got play on MTV, but somehow mainstream radio ignored it, with the song stalling down at #63 on Billboard magazine's R&B chart (though it did better on the older-skewing Adult R&B list at #31), while not even touching the pop Hot 100. However the song was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Performance in 2000, losing to Whitney Houston's "It's Not Right, But It's Okay", while Macy was nominated for Best New Artist that year, which went to Christina Aguilera. 

Gray's second offering from her debut was "I Try", written by the singer with Jinsoo Lin, Jeremy Ruzumma, and David Wilder, and produced by Andrew Slater. The song had tinges of gospel and blues, with Macy confessing that her true feelings of attachment to her absent lover are much stronger than the facade she puts on externally. In other hands, it could've come off as helpless and waiflike, but her gravelly voice packs a punch that there is strength underneath the pain of abandonment. The orchestral flourish at the start of the record returns at the right time in the climax of the song, and Gray's control of her voice from the almost-whisper to the throaty shout at the end perfectly encapsulates the circular spiral of depression over a lost love that many of us have had...

"I Try" became Macy's biggest hit by far, reaching the top five on the American pop chart in May of 2000. The single spent two months (eight weeks) at #2 on Billboard's older-skewing Adult Top-40 radio chart, #26 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") list, and #35 on the Adult R&B format. Internationally, the single topped the charts in Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland, and reached the top ten in Canada (#2), Austria (#3), Norway (#5), and the UK (#6). The On How Life Is album, released in July of 1999, eventually climbed to #4 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #9 on their R&B Albums chart, going on to sell over three million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2001, "I Try" won for Best Female Pop Performance, and was nominated for Record of the Year and Song Of The Year, losing both to U2's "Beautiful Day". 

The next single from On How Life Is was "Why Didn't You Call Me?", got some airplay on the Adult Top-40 format, reaching #25, but only "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 at #107. It did better overseas, reaching the top-40 in the UK (#38) and New Zealand (#35). A fourth release, "Still", got to #32 on the Adult Top-40 list, while internationally (where it was released as the follow-up to "I Try") it made the top-40 in New Zealand (#8), Belgium (#12F), the UK (#18), Australia (#21), and Ireland (#30). 

At the start of the following year, Macy was featured on British DJ/producer Fatboy Slim's single "Demons", which went to #16 on the British singles chart. She also was on the Black Eyed Peas' track "Request Line", which brought her back to the Hot 100 for one final time at #63, while hitting #51 on the R&B chart, while reaching the top-40 worldwide in New Zealand (#10), Australia (#21), Belgium (#18F), and the UK (#31). Despite that exposure, her sophomore effort, The Id, has the misfortune of being released on the week of the September 11th terror attack, which pretty much snuffed the promotion of the set. Lead single "Sweet Baby", featuring Erykah Badu, rose to #24 on the Adult Top-40 radio chart, but the single missed the Hot 100 altogether, and the album missed the Billboard 200 top ten by a notch at #11. Again, it did better overseas, hitting #2 in Belgium and making the top-40 in New Zealand (#12),  Italy (#18), the UK (#23), Switzerland (#36), and Australia (#39). It took "I Try"'s orchestral swelling and even improved of it, and deserves so much better. A second track from the set, "Sexual Revolution", climbed to #4 on Billboard's Dance Club Play list. 

Macy returned in 2003 with her third disc, The Trouble Of Being Myself. After the lead single, "When I See You", again missed the pop chart, placing at #21 on the Adult Top-40 radio list, and the album missed the top-40 on the Billboard 200 at #44, Gray and Epic parted ways. Her profile in the UK, though, was still going strong, with the single returning her to the top-40 at #26. With help from the Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am, Gray landed over on the Geffen label, and after a four year break she came back with Big, her fourth studio release. The set nudged her back into the Billboard 200 top-40 at #39, while the single "Shoo Be Doo (No Words)" hit #55 on Billboard's R&B chart and #11 on the Adult R&B format, followed by "What I Gotta Do", which is her most recent minor R&B hit at #67 while getting to #20 on the Adult R&B tally. The following year, her version of "Winter Wonderland" from the TV sitcom Ally McBeal was a seasonal hit on the British singles chart at #76. 

The singer moved again to pop side of jazz label Concord Records, where she released The Sellout in 2010. The first single from the set, "Beauty In The World", climbed to #23 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and took three weeks at #40 on the Adult Top-40 list, while the remixes of the track became her biggest hit on the Dance chart at #2. Another cut from the record, "Lately", also made the dance top ten at #8. The album rose to #38 on the Billboard 200, her last appearance there so far. 

Since then, Macy has released five more studio albums on various indie labels, most recently in 2018 with Ruby, which spawned the single "Sugar Daddy", which went to #21 on the Adult R&B format.. In 2021, her single "Thinking Of You" with the California Jet Club made it to Billboard's Adult Contemporary radio chart at #27. She's also appeared on Dancing With The Stars and the Australian version of The Masked Singer. And she's about to return to TV on the American Song Contest, the Stateside spinoff of Eurovision, representing her home state of Ohio. But her entire career definitely deserves a bigger appreciation.

(10/10)

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Here's Macy appearing on Conan O'Brien to perform the song...

Next up, that same year in concert in France...

Macy also did the song in Glastonbury in 2003, where she diverts to another song and back again...

 

 

At the North Sea Jazz Festival, she even lets her stellar backup singer shine...

and lastly, from 2020's Montreux Jazz Festival...

Up tomorrow: Yeah, the stars aligned and Tucker freaking Carlson's guest is next. Dammit.