Songoftheday 11/3/22 - Cool calm just like my mom, with a couple of lawsuits inside her palm...

 

 

"Purple Pills"/"Purple Hills" - D12

from the album Devil's Night (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #19 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 9

 

Today's song comes from the hip-hop collective D12 (for "Dirty Dozen"), which started in the early 1990s as a group of rappers from the Detroit area, including DeShaun "Proof" Holton and Rufus "Bizarre" Johnson. During that decade, one of their members, Marshall "Eminem" Mathers, would go on to be the biggest name in the genre in the 2000s. As the new millennium was beginning, the lead single from his second album, "The Real Slim Shady", landed in the top ten of the American pop chart in the summer of 2000. With that clout, Eminem was given the ability to do a startup "vanity" label under Interscope Records, the Shady imprint, where he signed his friends as an act with himself included for the collaborative album Devil's Night, which was released in the summer of 2001. The record had the group at six members, Eminem, Proof, and Bizarre, along with Denaun "Kon Artis" Porter, Kuniva, and Swifty McVay. The first single from the set, released at the end of 2000, was the hype track "Shit On You", was an expletive name-dropping party track that went to #69 on Billboard magazine's R&B Singles chart, and #2 on their Rap Songs list. The puerile and violent lyrics had radio staying clear away even from a chopped up "censored" version. However, overseas the song took off, reaching the top ten in Canada (#4), Germany (#8), the Netherlands (#8), and the United Kingdom (#10). 

For the second single, Eminem and D12 substituted the graphic imagery and immature jokes for a treatise on drugs. "Purple Pills", written by the group with producer Jeff Bass, was a slightly more musical affair and one that was more receptive to an overhaul to make the track "radio friendly". The retitled "Purple Hills" for the radio and CD single put more focus on the kiddish humor like on "The Real Slim Shady", as well as the chilled vibe of the title, and cleaned it up enough that even some pop stations gave it a go, even with such lyrics as "caught him wrestling with Elton John" (nice backstabbing there). The music video is just like a skit from a late night all access comedy show, albeit with better production but just as poor writing...

"Purple Hills", as it was listed in Billboard since that was the version on the CD single, became D12's first top-40 pop hit in August of 2001, while getting to #21 on their R&B Singles chart. It also spent three weeks at #1 on the Rap Singles list. On the radio, the song slipped on to the Mainstream Top-40 chart at #40, as well as #5 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in the UK (#2), Ireland (#2), Norway (#2), Australia (#3), Sweden (#5), the Netherlands (#8), Belgium (#8F/#22W), and Finland (#10). It also made the top-40 in New Zealand (#17), Germany (#19), Switzerland (#25), and Italy (#30). The Devil's Night album, released in July of that year, spent two weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, as well as topping the R&B Albums list, going on to sell over a million copies. 

A third single pulled from the record, "Fight Music", was produced by Eminem's musical mentor Dr. Dre, was also given a scrubbed up version for radio, but it didn't get music play in America. However, it was a decent success internationally, making the top-40 in the United Kingdom (#11), Ireland (#16), Australia (#27), Belgium (#31F/#40W), The Netherlands (#34), and Germany (#38). Eminem's delivery on this track predicts his starring turn on future #1 "Lose Yourself" (its a shame there's a few very questionably lyric choices in there by his colleagues). But D12 will in time be back to the series.

(2/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the original drug-fueled explicit version of the video from the album...

In 2001, the group appeared on the Source Awards and performed the cleaned up version...

and lastly, Eminem's Anger Management concert from Detroit in 2005...

Up tomorrow: This girl from the block "invented the remix", on the charts at least.