Songoftheday 3/4/22 - It's amazing how you knock me off my feet, everytime you come around me I get weak...

 

 

"I Wanna Know" - Joe

from the albums The Wood (Original Soundtrack) (1999) & My Name Is Joe (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40:38 

Today's song comes from neo-soul singer Joe (Thomas), who after just missing the pop top ten with "All The Things (Your Man Won't Do)" from the movie Don't Be A Menace... in the spring of 1996, finally did the trick three years later with his collaboration with Case on the Rush Hour soundtrack hit "Faded Pictures". At the start of 2000, Joe was featured on the #1 hit from Mariah Carey, "Thank God I Found You". At around the same time, Joe also contributed a song to yet another movie, this time for the coming-of-age film The Wood starring Omar Epps. "I Wanna Know" also served as a preview of Joe's upcominng third disc My Name Is Joe. Written by Thomas with Joylon Skinner and Michele Williams, the song is in the perspective of a woman's "rebound" lover, who promises to be better than the last guy and wants to know what she wants for him to do with (and to) her. It's the usual romance track simply made for the ladies, but Joe sells it well, and the production is nice and loose, with a good mix of guitars and synths....

"I Wanna Know" became Joe's third top ten pop hit, and first true "solo" one, in July of 2000. The song spent two weeks at #2 on Billboard magazine's R&B Singles chart, taking over a year on the list, while crossing over to the Adult Contemporary (or "Easy Listening") radio format at #21. Internationally, the single climbed to #6 in Canada, and was a top-40 hit in the Netherlands (#17), Australia (#34), and the UK (#37). The soundtrack to The Wood, released in July of 1999, climbed to #16 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a half million copies. Joe's own My Name Is Joe came out in April of 2000, as the song was climbing the charts, and took a week at #2 on the Billboard 200, spending over a year on the list, selling over three million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2001, "I Wanna Know" was nominated for Best Male R&B Vocal, losing out to fellow one-named neo-soul crooner D'Angelo for his "Untitled (How Does It Feel)". The My Name Is Joe album was also up for Best R&B Album, which also went to D'Angelo for Voodoo. 

The Wood soundtrack spun off a couple other minor R&B hits as well, with "Neck Uv Da Woods" from rappers Mystkal and Outkast going to #73 in August of 1999, followed by "Think About You" by Blackstreet whch rose to #51 on the R&B list. 

Both Joe and the My Name Is Joe album will be back to the series.

(6/10)

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Here's Joe performing "I Wanna Know" on Showtime At The Apollo in 2000...

and lastly, on a last.fm radio spot in 2013...

Up tomorrow: Well, the guy Joe lost twice to.