Songoftheday 9/1/23 - I kinda noticed something wasn't right from your colorful face, it's kinda weird to me since you're so fine...
"Like I Love You" - Justin Timberlake featuring The Clipse
from the album Justified (2002)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #11 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14
Today's song comes from Justin Timberlake, who was part of one of the two biggest boybands of the late 90's early 2000's, *NSYNC. That group's fourth studio (and third non-holiday) album, Celebrity, had sold millions, but at the expense of the (mostly non-commercial) singles from the record, save the collaboration with rapper Nelly on "Girlfriend", which reached the top five on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the spring of 2002. However Justin had already been planning on a solo career before that point. On a break after the tour behind Celebrity, Timberlake recruited producers like Tim "Timbaland" Mosley and Pharrell Williams for what would eventually been his first solo set, Justified. The lead single from the record, "Like I Love You", which we brought out that summer. Written by Timberlake with Pharrell and "Neptunes" production partner as well as the brother rap duo the Clipse (Terence & Gene Thornton), who just scored their own top-40 debut with "Grindin'", the song's lyrics are just shovels full of attitude.It has Timberlake hitting on this woman, with a mixture of lines, invitations to dance, and promises of being "the one". Meanwhile the Clipse come up and just raunch the place up with threesomes and showing off in public and who knows what else. Of course the Neptunes production helps the medicine go down, with a stripped down production dominated by a strummed acoustic guitar, and Pharrell clearly singing some of the accent notes. The best thing about the song is the switching around musically during the verses and chorus, but besides Justin's position as a "heartthrob", its not totally different from what was out there in the R&B world save the color of his skin. Of course it got him a possibly bigger audience, but that was already assured from his stint with *NSYNC. The music video must have at least been partially funded by 7-Eleven, for some reason...
Despite his A-list status, and mostly because it wasn't released as a commercial single and had to rely on airplay points alone, "Like I Love You" stopped just under the top ten on Billboard's Hot 100 in October of 2002, while crossing over in reverse to the R&B Singles chart at #53. On the radio, the song climbed to #4 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart and #17 on the dance/R&B oriented Rhythmic format. The remixes of the track, done by the likes of the alt-dance group Basement Jaxx and the neo-disco team of Deep Dish, helped it spend a week at #1 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart as well. Internationally, the single reached the top ten in the United Kingdom (#2), Denmark (#4), The Netherlands (#5), Ireland (#5), Belgium (#6 Flanders/#27 Wallonia), New Zealand (#6), Australia (#8), Croatia (#8), Portugal (#9), and Norway (#10). It also hit the top-40 in Canada (#11), Sweden (#14), Switzerland (#14), Germany (#16), Italy (#17), Spain (#20), Greece (#27), Austria (#29), and Hungary (#36). The Justified album, released in November of that year, came in at #2 on the Billboard 200, going on to sell over three million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2003, "Like I Love You" was nominated for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, which went to Nelly and Kelly Rowland for their #1 hit "Dilemma". A year later, the Justified album won for Best Pop Vocal Album, and was nominated for Album Of The Year, which went to rap duo Outkast for Speakerboxx/The Love Below.
Both Justin and the Justified album will return to the series.
(6/10)
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Next up, from his Justified tour in London in 2003...
and lastly in concert in Vegas...
Tomorrow I'll have my top tunes of the current week, then on Monday Songoftheday will be back with an Aussie countryman wanting a fascimile, perhaps.
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