Songoftheday 8/18/23 - Hey my baby why you lookin' so down? Seems like you need a lovin' baby you need a girl like me around...

 

 

"I Care 4 U" - Aaliyah

from the album I Care 4 U (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #16 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 14

 

Today's song comes from the late R&B singer Aaliyah, who at the peak of her career tragically perished in an airplane crash in the late summer of 2001. Two of the singles from her self-titled #1 album had reached the top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 after her death - "Rock The Boat" and "More Than A Woman".  A year later, her label Blackground Records through Universal released a collection of  half unreleased material and half older hits going as far back as her debut "Back & Forth". The song "I Care 4 U", originally recorded for her sophomore effort One In A Million then again for her self-titled set but not used, was released as a single in the spring of 2002. Written by Aaliyah and producer Tim "Timbaland" Mosley, the track sampled the obscure soul nugget "Too Much Going To Say Goodbye" by the Newcomers, which went to #74 on Billboard magazine's R&B Singles chart in 1975. However the writers, Homer Banks and Carl Hampton, didn't get credit on the track until its recent re-release. Here's their original...

Timbaland took the whole production from this record to create the drama that Aaliyah sang over, almost like an answer record, but in the perspective of the new woman in the man's life. The lyrics read like a conversation, with Aaliyah comforting her new lover after his previous breakup. Timbaland just adds his spit-take "beatboxing" noises. I'm not sure why it wasn't included on the Aaliyah album - perhaps it was the sample, but once it came out it was a worthy addition to her work to hit the radio...

"I Care 4 U" reached the top-20 on Billboard's Hot 100 in October of 2002, while spending two weeks at #3 on their R&B Singles chart (with 44 weeks total on that list). On the radio, the song peaked at #8 on the older-skewing Adult R&B station list. The single would have done even better had it been released as a commercial single at the time. The I Care 4 U album, released in December of 2002, spent a half a year on the Billboard 200 sales chart with a week at #3, and spent seven weeks at #1 on their R&B Albums sales tally, going on to sell over a million copies.

Both Aaliyah and the I Care 4 U album will be back to the series.

(7/10)

Tomorrow I'll have my top hits of this week, and on Monday Song of the Day will be back with a country singer in a search.