Songoftheday 8/31/22 - Come home late it seems you barely beat the sun, tapping my shoulder thinking you gon' get you some...
"Heard It All Before" - Sunshine Anderson
from the album Your Woman (2001)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #18 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13
Today's song comes from Sunshine Anderson (not to be confused with the TV chef Sunny Anderson), who grew up in North Carolina, where she was discovered and signed by producer Michael "Mike City" Flowers to his Soullife imprint on Atlantic Records. In 2001, Anderson released her debut album Your Woman on the label. The lead single from the set was the retro-soul of "Heard It All Before", which she wrote with Flowers along with Chris Dawley and Rayshawn Sherrer. In the song Anderson catches her man "out there" cheating, and gives a succinct clapback and dismissal without any chance of redemption. Sunshine's flow works well with the lite jazzy production, and it sounded more timeless than a lot of the current R&B at the time. The music video pretty much stays true to the song, using special effects to digitize the breakup, as mentor Macy Gray (of "I Try" fame) looks on...
"Heard It All Before" became Anderson's first and only hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 pop chart, climbing into the top-20 in May of 2001. The song spent three weeks at #3 on the R&B Singles list, while the remixes of the track helped it go to #11 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, "Heard It All Before" went all the way to #9 on the British Singles chart. The Your Woman album, released in April of that year, peaked at #5 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #2 on the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a half-million copies.
Sunshine's next single, "Lunch Or Dinner", was written and produced solely by Mike City, and sported the same sweet mix of moody soul and sassy lyrics, but criminally was stiffed, stopping at #54 on the R&B chart in the U.S. and #57 on the British Singles list. It definitely deserved better, but perhaps the big chunk of people appreciating her sound bought the album. Anderson wouldn't make another song with the label.
In 2003, Anderson appeared as a vocalist on the single "Easy" from the London-based dance act Groove Armada, which went to #5 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart, and made the British pop top-40 at #31. The song, co-written by Anderson, was on the group's album Lovebox, which hit #3 on Billboard's top Electronic/Dance Albums chart.
Anderson signed with Music World Entertainment, run by Beyonce's dad Matthew Knowles. However by the time her second album Sunshine At Midnight was released, interest at R&B radio had waned, with two singles stalling in the bottom quarter of the R&B chart, "Force Of Nature" doing the best at #75. The album, lacking Mike City's guidance, got to #86 on the Billboard 200 and #16 on the R&B Albums list (actually better than expected with the singles tanking).
The singer's most recent album, The Sun Shines Again on the Verve Forecast label, reunited Sunshine with Mike City in 2010. The record made it to #50 on Billboard's R&B Albums sales chart, and had two cuts reach the R&B Singles chart, with "Lie To Kick It" going to #84 and "Say Something" becoming her so far last chart appearance for a week at #92. It's worth a listen. Since then Sunshine has released a few one-off singles, most recently "Level Up" in 2020.
(9/10)
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and lastly, on Later... with a band...
Up tomorrow: A pre-Idol musical reality show spawns a girl group for a one-off top ten hit.
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