Songoftheday 10/26/22 - There's something about her you know, it's the way that she carries herself...

 

 

"There She Goes" - Babyface

from the album Face2Face (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #31 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 2

 

Today's song comes from singer/songwriter/producer/record label exec Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds, who, along with frequent collaborator L.A. Reid, been a major part of the sound of pop and soul music from the late 1980s through the next decade. However, after his fourth studio album The Day in 1996 that spun off two top ten pop/R&B hits with "This Is For The Lover In You" and "Every Time I Close My Eyes", he took a break for most of the rest of the decade, releasing a tie in live acoustic set with MTV Unplugged a year later, followed by a Christmas With Babyface holiday set in 1998, both of which peaked in the lower half of the Billboard 200 sales tally. In fact, his sole appearance on the pop Hot 100 chart during that time was a collaboration with Jay-Z, "(Always Be My) Sunshine", from the rapper's In My Lifetime, Vol. 1 album, which slipped in at #95 in 1997, though it made the R&B top-40 at #37. A Collection Of His Greatest Hits recapped his tenure at Epic Records in 2000, but the single from the set, "Reason For Breathing", wasn't promoted by his former company, and stalled at #59 on Billboard magazine's R&B Singles chart, and not even coming close to the pop Hot 100. 

But that didn't mean Babyface was lying dormant in the music scene. He was writing and producing hits for a myriad of artists like Boyz II Men, Dru Hill, En Vogue, and most notably Pink, whose debut album he helmed two of the three singles. Probably due to record contract obligations, Babyface finally left Epic and moved to Arista Records, which at the time had L.A. Reid as its head boss. In 2001, he released his sixth studio album, and first "regular" release in five years, Face2Face. The record had Reid as an executive producer, but Babyface brought in a bunch of newer big names on the scene. One of them was the production team of the Neptunes, Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, who was just starting to pick up steam with singles from rappers Ol' Birty Bastard, Jay-Z, and Mystikal. The pair collaborated with Babyface on two tracks on the album, including the lead single "There She Goes". As for the song, it definitely was made to fit in with the radio hits of the time, though pasteurized for language to fit Babyface's aesthetic. However, you have to listen intently to figure out it's Babyface without being told, since his vocals are drowned out by the skittish production and the Neptunes' backing vocals. I mean, it sounds cool, but having him so far down in the mix is a little counterproductive with such an identifiable voice. The music video also tries to try really hard to be current, though it makes Babyface look like a Lenny Kravitz clone. It's hilarious to hear him sing "gotta make some eye contact" while he's wearing blocky sunglasses the whole time. Nevertheless the Neptunes' momentum and Babyface's name recognition (as well as the promo push from Arista) brought him back to the charts, if only for a short time...

"There She Goes" became Babyface's thirteenth solo-billed top-40 pop hit in July of 2001, though it only took two weeks on that level. It did much better on Billboard's R&B singles chart, where it landed in the top ten at #10. Tellingly, it didn't make any of their radio charts either pop or R&B, so its success was mostly due to sales. Internationally the only country that it appeared on their charts was in Germany, and that was a couple weeks with a high of #93. The Face2Face album, released on the fateful day of September 11, 2001, peaked at #25 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #8 on the R&B Albums list. 

The second single pulled from Face2Face was "What If", which Babyface wrote and produced himself. The song sounded more like his older work, which may have caused a bit of whiplash with radio and his fans - the song got to #28 on the R&B Singles chart, with support from urban radio (#26 on R&B Airplay and #3 on the older-skewing Adult R&B format), but pop radio was cold, and it stalled at #80 on the Hot 100, his most appearance there.

It would be another long four years for Babyface to return with a second album on Arista, Grown & Sexy, which did manage to reach the top ten on both the Billboard 200 (#10) and R&B Albums (#3) sales lists. Although he was reunited with old collab partner Darryl Simmons on a couple of songs on the album including the title track, none of the three singles made the R&B Singles top-40, with "The Loneliness" doing the best at #49, but all three did reached the top ten on the older-leaning Adult R&B format ("The Loneliness" topped out at #6), showing his audience was moving from the mainstream. Even more telling was the fact that his cover of James Taylor's soft-rock classic "Fire And Rain", which was on his mostly-covers album Playlist in 2007 for Mercury Records, missed all the main pop and R&B charts, but was a top ten hit at #10 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart. 

Moving yet again to Motown Records, Babyface got together with former protege Toni Braxton for the collaborative album Love, Marriage, & Divorce in 2014. The record was a critical and commercial success, returning him to the top ten on the Billboard 200 at #4, while spending a week at #1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums list. The lead single from the set, "Hurt You", brought Babyface (and Braxton) back to the R&B Singles top-40 at #33, while "bubbling under" the pop Hot 100 at #113. The song was a huge hit on the Adult R&B format, topping the chart for a month and spending 41 weeks on the list. The album won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album the following year. The album ranks among their best and is worth seeking out.

In 2015, Babyface tried to capitalize on that momentum with another solo album, The Return Of The Tender Lover, hearkening back to the title of his debut disc. He worked with Darryl Simmons on all the tracks on the succinct ten-track album, which made the Billboard 200 top-40 at #39, while getting to #5 on the R&B Albums list. Lead single "We've Got Love" made the top ten on the Adult R&B format at #9. 

More recently, Babyface guested on a track on fellow 90's production stars James Harris and Terry Lewis' Jam & Lewis Vol. One album in 2020. The song, "He Don't Know Nothin' 'Bout It", reached #4 on the Adult R&B radio list. This year, he was a guest on Charlie Wilson's single "No Stoppin' Us", which topped the Adult R&B chart for three weeks. Babyface's most recent album, Girls Night Out, was just released this past week. From the record, which pairs him with fresh and vital female soul singers, the song "Keeps On Fallin'" with Ella Mai hit #2 on the Adult R&B chart.

(5/10)

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Here's Babyface performing "There She Goes" as a rock track in 2001...

Up tomorrow: this rock band toasts the evening.