Songoftheday 9/6/22 -- Standing here looking out my window, my nights are long and my days are cold...

 

 

"Missing You" - Case

from the album Open Letter (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #4 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 12

 

Today's song comes from R&B singer Case, whose sophomore album Personal Conversation had spun off two top-40 crossover hits on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in 1999 with "Happily Ever After" and the top ten collaboration with Joe "Faded Pictures".  Later that year he sang on "The Best Man I Can Be", a track from the movie The Best Man with Ginuwine, R.L. from Next, and Tyrese, which rose to #15 on the R&B Singles chart and #67 on the Hot 100. 

In 2001, Case returned with his third album on Def Jam Records, Open Letter. The lead single from the set was the ballad "Missing You". Written by Joe (who originally recorded the song, producers Tim Kelley and Bob Robinson, and Joshua Paul Thompson, the song has Case wallowing in grief over the loss of a love. The theme allows Case to go through emotional vocal gymnastics as he spirals during the course of the record to seeing things to bleak resignation. There is no happy ending here, but at least the midtempo production chugs the song on without getting mired in despair...

"Missing You" became Case's highest-charting single on Billboard's Hot 100, reaching the top-5 in April of 2001. It was also the singer's sole #1 on the R&B Singles chart, spending four weeks at the top, The Open Letter album, released in April as the single was cresting, rose all the way to #5 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #2 on the R&B Albums list, a career high on both and selling over a half million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2002, "Missing You" was nominated for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, losing out to Usher for his smash "U Remind Me". 

Despite having his biggest hit with "Missing You", that momentum didn't carry to the follow-up single "Not Your Friend", which Case co-wrote. The record stalled down at #65 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart. However, Case returned to the top ten in 2001 as a featured artist on rapper Ja Rule's single "Livin' It Up", which went to #6 on the Hot 100. Case would leave Def Jam after one more soundtrack contribution, "Shoulda Known Better" with Wu-Tang Clan rapper Ghostface from the movie Johnson Family Vacation, which got to #87 on the R&B Singles chart in 2004.

After a long eight year break, Case returned on his own indie imprint Indigo Blue Records for his fourth disc The Rose Experience, which spent a pair of weeks on the Billboard 200 with a high of #111. The set included "Shoulda Known Better", along with "Lovely", his most recent R&B Singles appearance at #73. Since then, Case has released three more studio album, with the most recent Therapy arriving in 2018. In 2020, he worked with producer Salaam Remi for a new single, "Until This Day", for Rami's album Black On Purpose.

 

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Here's Joe (Thomas)'s original from his import version of his My Name Is Joe album...

Next up is Case appearing on The Tonight Show...

...and Case in concert in 2017...

 

Up tomorrow: Lofty urban trio ponders single motherhood.