Songoftheday 10/25/22 - Back on the road again feeling kinda lonely, and looking for the right guy to be mine...

 

 

"Someone To Call My Lover" - Janet Jackson

from the album All For You (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 17

 

Today's song comes from Janet Jackson, who returned to the top of the pop charts in the spring of 2001 with the title track to her seventh studio album "All For You".  Janet's (at the time she was being credited as just "Janet") follow-up was the breezy electro-soul of "Someone To Call My Lover", written primarily by the singer with producers Jimmy "Jam" Harris and Terry Lewis. The record samples the acoustic guitar hook from "Ventura Highway", the top ten hit from soft-rock group America in 1972, which gave Dewey Bunnell writing credit as well. But besides that organic guitar run the rest of the record is a chillwave electronica affair, as Janet ventures out as a single woman after her separation from soon to be ex-husband Rene Elizondo Jr., a marriage that at the time was even secret to the general public. Jackson bemoans being lonely and how hard is it to find someone as a musician on the road. It's quite a personal song for her, which is possibly hidden by the bouncy but cold production the lyrics are laid on. The recognizable America hook and her residual exposure from "All For You" meant radio gave this a thumbs up, though little would she (and us) know that this would be her last top ten pop hit (at least up until now)...

"Someone To Call My Lover" reached the top ten on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in America in September of 2001, while just missing that level on their R&B Singles chart at #11. On the radio, the song made it to #3 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, #26 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 list, and #29 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening" format). But telling, probably because of the electropop production, the track stalled at #51 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart. The remixes of "Someone to Call My Lover", done by Hex Hector and Mac Quayle as well as Velvet, helped it top Billboard's Dance Club Play chart for a week. Internationally, the single hit #3 in Croatia and #9 in Canada, while reaching the top-40 in the United Kingdom (#11), Australia (#15), New Zealand (#18), Ireland (#23), Belgium (#32F/#38W), and Italy (#34). At the Grammy Awards in 2002, "Someone To Call My Lover" was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, losing out to newcomer Nelly Furtado's "I'm Like A Bird". Both Janet and the All For You album will return to the series.

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Like many singles in the turn of the millennium, there was a separate remix done for the "urban radio" market, and this one was done by rapper/producer Jermaine "JD" Dupri, who cribs the lyrics to the novelty hit "Da' Dip" and also shows up in the reshot video...

Here's the club transformation of the song by Hex Hector and Mac Quayle that helped the song top Billboard's dance chart...

and lastly, performing the song on her tour behind the album in Hawaii in 2002...

Up tomorrow: Uber-producer/writer sees her off with his most recent top-40 hit.