Songoftheday 10/5/22 - To relax my mind so I can be free, and absorb sound that keep me 'round...
"Music" - Erick Sermon featuring Marvin Gaye
from the albums What's The Worst That Could Happen? (Original Soundtrack) and Music (both 2001)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #22 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10
Today's song comes from rapper Erick Sermon, who started out as one half of the duo EPMD with Parrish Smith. EPMD had released their debut album Strictly Business in 1988, which topped Billboard magazine's R&B Albums chart and went to #80 on the Billboard 200 sales tally. In the autumn of 1992, the pair almost made the Hot 100 top-40 with their aptly-named single "Crossover", which stopped at #42 while peaking at #14 on the R&B Singles list. Erick and Parrish first split acrimoniously a year later, with Sermon releasing his first solo album No Pressure, which got to #16 on the Billboard 200 and #2 on the R&B Albums list. The big single from the set, "Stay Real", topped Billboard's Rap Songs chart, made it to #52 on the R&B Singles list, and popped on to the all-genre Hot 100 at #92. A second solo disc in 1995, Double Or Nothing, spun of a top-40 R&B hit at #39 with "Bomdigi" which also got to #84 on the Hot 100.
Sermon reunited with Parrish in 1997, and released two more EPMD albums before breaking up for a second time. Erick initially signed with DreamWorks Records, but because of tangled legal issues had to release his next solo set under the alias Erick Onasis, which didn't get as much attention on the radio, though it went to #53 on the Billboard 200 and #15 on the R&B Albums list. He then moved to Clive Davis' new label J Records, where he was able to reclaim his surname and release his first single there, "Music", which originally appeared on the soundtrack to the Martin Lawrence/Danny Devito movie What's The Worst That Could Happen?. The movie bombed (raking in 38 million off a 60 million budget), but the Sermon song got noticed because of the use of a sample of an outtake demo from the late great soul legend Marvin Gaye, who last was on this series with his 1982 top ten smash "Sexual Healing". The Midnight Love album cut "Turn On Some Music", in its prenatal form "I've Got My Music", was sampled into the single which Sermon produced himself. It was great to hear Marvin's voice again, though the G-funk style production and Sermon's rap which didn't seem to catch up with the pace dinged it a little. The music video also had copious amounts of clips from the hideous movie, but in the end everyone ran towards the Gaye and it became Erick's biggest hit solo or not...
"Music" reached the top-40 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart in July of 2001. The song spent a week at #2 on the R&B Singles chart, while getting to #4 on the Rap Songs list. On the radio, the track rose to #26 at the dance-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single made the British top-40 at #36. The What's The Worst That Could Happen? soundtrack, which came out in May of that year, peaked at #38 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #6 on the R&B Albums list. The song also became the title track to Erick's fourth solo album, which hit #33 on the Billboard 200 and #8 on the R&B Albums list.
A second single from Music, "I'm Hot", with sampled Gaye's "Sexual Healing" for the title", was released that fall, becoming a minor R&B singles hit at #49, making it to #21 on the Rap Singles list, but missing the Hot 100. Sermon will be back to the series.
(5/10)
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Here's a clip of Erick doing some "Music" at the Gotham Comedy Club in 2020...
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