Songoftheday 8/29/22 - So many things I've got to tell you, but I'm afraid I don't know how...

 

 

"Love" - Musiq Soulchild

from the album Aijuswanaseing (2000) 

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #24 (four weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 13

 

Today's song comes from neo-soul singer/songwriter Musiq Soulchild, whose debut single "Just Friends (Sunny)" placed in Billboard magazine's pop top-40 and R&B top ten at the close of 2000.  His follow-up to that success is the song "Love". Written by Musiq (under his birth name Taalib Hassan Johnson) and producer Andre Harris with Carvin Haggins, the lyrics have Musiq confessing his love for a woman as well as describing the weight that word carries for himself. Just like in "Sunny", there an overwhelming sense of vulnerability there that sets it apart from the normal braggadocio the genre had been falling into. The production is refreshingly sparse and jazz-influenced, with the chorus coming in like a hymn in church. The music video expands the theme, portraying the different kinds of love between two humans, and its damn glorious...

"Love" became Musiq's second top-40 crossover hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in March of 2001. The song also spent a week at #2 on the R&B Singles chart as well. At the Grammy Awards in 2002, "Love" was nominated for Best Male R&B Performance with Vocal, losing to Usher's "U Remind Me".

A third release from the debut album, "Girl Next Door", made the R&B top-40 at #28, while stalling down at #85 on the pop Hot 100. Musiq will be back to the series.

(9/10)

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Here's Musiq performing "Love" in concert in 2016...

Up tomorrow: These Irish siblings need some oxygen.