Songoftheday 4/22/22 - Baby set me free From this misery, I can't take it no more...

 

 

"Back Here" - BBMak

from the album Sooner Or Later (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #13 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 24

 

Today's song comes from BBMak, a British trio that came together in the mid-1990s in Liverpool, England. Christian Burns, whose father was also a pop musician, found Mark Barry and Stephen McNally, and their bandname is a shortened combination of their surnames. Signed to the Telstar label in their home country, the threesome released their debut single "Back Here" originally in the summer of 1999, where it popped into the top-40 in the UK at #37. The following year, it was released in America through the Disney-affiliated Hollywood label, and became a big success, riding on the wave of the "boy-bands" of the era during the turn of the millennium. Written by the group with Phil Thornalley (once of the Cure and co-writer of Natalie Imbruglia's smash "Torn") and produced by Oliver Lieber and John Shanks, the midtempo easy-going track that has them playing the heel of an ex-boyfriend trying to win the woman back promising to change. It sounds nice on the surface even though a deep listen to the lyrics is kind of cringy. But that's not the priority in the "boy-band" universe, and the track did quite well as an American crossover. All three get a turn on lead vocals, and the music video does have a nice acappella ending, but damn only Burns doesn't look like he's dead behind the eyes...

"Back Here" became BBMak's first and only top-40 pop hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in July of 2000. The single was huge on "easy listening" radio, topping the Adult Contemporary radio chart for seven weeks and spending a full years on the list, while making it to #12 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format. Internationally, after the success of the song in the U.S., "Back Here" was re-released at home, where it climbed to #5 in the UK. It also reached the top-40 in Canada (#11), New Zealand (#18), Ireland (#27), and Sweden (#39). BBMak's debut album, Sooner Or Later, arrived in the U.S. in May of 2000, and rose to #38 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, selling over a half million copies.

The second single from Sooner or Later, "Still On Your Side", another mid-tempo pleasant lady-charmer. The song landed their second top ten hit in their native Britain at #8, and went to #40 on the Adult Top-40 format, but stalled under the Hot 100 top-40 at #54. A third try, "Ghost Of You And Me", which was co-written by Richard Page of the 80's band Mr. Mister, went to #8 on the Adult Top-40 radio list in America, while "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #110. 

The trio returned in 2002 with their sophomore effort Into Your Head, which went higher on the Billboard 200 sales tally at #25, but only stayed on the chart for five weeks as compared to 44 for their debut. Lead single "Out Of My Heart (Into Your Head)" got some easy listening airplay, hitting #23 on the Adult Top-40 chart and #25 on the Adult Contemporary list, but it stopped down at #56 on the Hot 100. It did land the group a top-40 hit in the UK at #36, Canada at #22, and New Zealand at #19. Frankly, the song would probably be a big hit on country radio for today. After a second single stiffed, the three went their separate ways. McNally appeared on the British version of The Voice and made a few albums and soundtracks, while Burns released two solo album as well as a collaborative release with BT under the moniker All Hail The Silence that was a quite nice slice of early 1980s new wave nostalgia. 

Burns, Barry, and McNally reunited in 2018 and released a third album Powerstation a year later. That was followed by a collection of rarities, The Lost Tapes, in 2021. 

 

(5/10)

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Like yesterday's SOTD "Swear It Again", "Back Here" also had separately shot videos for America and Europe. Here's the original London version...

 

 Next up, the trio appeared live (for real) on Top of the Pops...

and finally, from 2018 looking like they made a deal with the devil to look just as young for Entertainment Tonight...

Up tomorrow: THE boy band declared their choice.