Songoftheday 6/28/23 -I got another man but he ain't like you, and I can't be yo' baby mamma though I'd like to...

 

 

"Call Me" - Tweet

from the album Southern Hummingbird (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #31 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 6

 

Today's song comes from R&B singer Charlene Keys, aka "Tweet", whose debut single as a lead artist, "Oops (Oh My)", not only topped Billboard magazine's R&B singles chart, but also crossed over into the top ten on the all-genre Hot 100 in the spring of 2002. Tweet's second single also paired her with her mentors, rapper/singer/songwriter/producer/icon Missy Elliott as well as producer Tim "Timbaland" Mosley. "Call Me", written by Keys and Elliott, has the singer aggressively macking on a guy, even though she's already got a man. She's down to clown anyway, and I'm not so sure the misspelling on "bonified" is a mistake or not. She disses her man, and goes as far to meeting up the side piece with no panties (oh my!). Of course, this is on a Missy/Timbaland groove, which helps the medicine go down, but the melody is rather basic, lingering almost into a monotonous wave. Maybe that hindered it from having the impact of "Oops!", but Tweet still found herself with a decent hit...

"Call Me" became Tweet's second, and so far last, top-40 hit on Billboard's Hot 100 in June of 2002, while doing much better on their R&B Singles list, peaking at #9. On the radio, the song also climbed to #19 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single made the top-40 in the United Kingdom at #35, while becoming a minor hit in Germany at #95.

A third single from the record, "Boogie 2Nite", which scrapped Missy & Timbaland for their pinch hitters Nisan Stewart and John Smith, missed the charts altogther, though a remake by the British duo Booty Luv went all the way to #2 on the British singles chart in 2006.

Tweet returned in the autumn of 2004 (after a wait while she and Missy's label Gold Mind was moved from Elektra to Atlantic Records) with "Turn Da Lights Off", the lead single from her sophomore effort It's Me Again. Missy was on hand to co-write and produce the track, which unlike her debut hits relied heavily on samples from Marvin Gaye and Nat King Cole. The experimental single sounded great, but the song failed to catch on, barely scraping the R&B top-40 at #39, while only "bubbling under" the Hot 100 at #108. The It's Me Again album got to #17 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #2 on the R&B Albums list, and by 2007, she had left the label.

Since then, Tweet appeared on the multi-artist soul/classical fusion album Dresden Soul Symphony, and then released an EP on the indie label DuBose, Simply Tweet, in 2013. Her most recent album, Charlene, came out in 2016 on the eOne label, and went to #42 on the Billboard 200 and #6 on the R&B Albums list. Two songs from the record, "Won't Hurt Me" and "Neva Shouda Left Ya", reached the older-skewing Adult R&B radio chart, both at #23. She's released a few singles independently, most recently "Neva Gonna Break My Heart Again" in 2021. 

(4/10)

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Here's Tweet performing the song live in Germany in 2003...

Up tomorrow: R&B newcomer gets friend-zoned.