Songoftheday 1/9/23 -Everybody wanna get down when you hear the sound and you bump the beat three sixty-five days a year...

 

 

"AM To PM" - Christina Milian

from the album Christina Milian (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #27 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 7

 

Today's song comes from New Jersey-born singer Christina Milian, who started out as Christine Flores, a child actress before starting a music career in California. Noticed by rapper Ja Rule, Milian was featured on his single "Between Me And You", which came a notch from reaching the pop top ten in the late fall of 2000. With that exposure Christina was signed to Def Soul Records, where she recorded her self-titled debut album which arrived in the autumn of 2001. The lead single from the set was "AM To PM", a mid-tempo club track written by the singer with Swedish producers Bloodshy & Avant (Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg). The production is definitely trying to emulate the sound of Destiny's Child by Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, while she coos generic party at the club lyrics about going on all night. She even cribs the "remix in the middle of the video" idea J-Lo had already done for her debut single ages ago. Nevertheless, the MTV Most Wanted crowd ate it up, and Milian found herself with her first hit as a lead artist...

 

"AM To PM" became Christina's second top-40 hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart, and first as a lead, in October of 2001, while getting to #58 on their R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. On the radio, the song reached #21 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart and #24 on the dance oriented Rhythmic format. The club remixes of the track, done by house music DJ's Hex Hector, Mac Quayle, and E-Smoove, helped it rise to #13 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, the single hit the top ten in the United Kingdom (#3), Denmark (#4), Ireland (#6), Norway (#7), The Netherlands (#8), and Belgium (#9 Flanders/#31 Wallonia), while making the top-40 in Sweden (#16), Finland (#17), Australia (#25), Switzerland (#28), and Italy (#39). The Christina Milian album, released in October as the single was cresting, missed the Billboard 200 and R&B Albums charts in Billboard, but did make the top-40 in the UK at #23.

The second single from the record, "When You Look At Me", was also produced by Bloodshy & Avant, and leaned even farther in the "boy-band" Swedish factory sound as opposed to her work with Ja Rule. It stiffed in the States, but internationally, where that genre was still riding high, the single did much better, making the top ten in Australia (#2), the UK (#3), the Netherlands (#3), Hungary (#3), Ireland (#5), Belgium (#7 Flanders/#25 Wallonia), and Poland (#8). 

Christina will be back to the series.

(5/10)

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Here's Christina performing the song for a TV appearance...

and lastly, on an awards show in the Netherlands in 2001..

Up tomorrow: Country duo get a big jingoistic.