Songoftheday 11/1/23 - Now I'm not trying to be rude but hey pretty girl I'm feelin' you, the way you do the things you do reminds me of my Lexus coupe...

 

 

"Ignition" (Remix) - R. Kelly

from the album Chocolate Factory (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #2 (five weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 32

 

Today's song comes from former R&B star singer/songwriter/producer and current incarcerated felon R. Kelly, whose legal troubles were just beginning when he hit the top-40 on the Hot 100 in the beginning of 2002 with "The World's Greatest" from the Will Smith biopic Ali.  At the time that song entered the top-40, a video with Kelly with an underage girl was leaked to the press, and despite his denials, which came hot and heavy, he was arrested in June of that year and again at the beginning of 2003 (though in the second case a botched warrant caused that case to be dropped). At the same time as "The World's Greatest", Kelly released a collaborative album with Jay-Z, The Best Of Both Worlds, on the rapper's Roc-A-Fella label. The set spent a week at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and topped the R&B Albums list for two weeks. However, radio stayed pretty much away, with "Get This Money" and "Best Of Both Worlds" intro just nicking the R&B Singles chart top-40 at #37 and #39 respectively. Another track from the set, "Take You Home With Me aka Body", was the only song to make the Hot 100 at #81. In the UK, the song "Honey" at least made the top-40 on the main singles chart at #35, but this was way before the advent of social media where news and gossip travels quickly. Nevertheless, the album sold over a million copies. 

In 2002 Kelly was also working on a solo set, tentatively titled Loveland, but after a bevy of leaks, it was cancelled, though a track meant for it, the light disco of "Step In The Name Of Love", was released, and entered the chart in October of that year, a month before another song would be released from Kelly. ("Step..." would eventually be remixed and re-promoted and will eventually be in this series.)

That song that would lead the upcoming fifth studio album from Kelly, Chocolate City, was "Ignition". Also originally intended for Loveland, the song appears on the album in its original as well as a "remix", which really was more like a Part 1/Part 2 that James Brown was a master of (and Stevie Wonder dabbled into as well). But it would be the remix that would be played on the radio and charted. While the original was a midtempo swaying track to boink to, the remix has Kelly singing at a faster pace, with a better groove even though it's clearly announcing it's product status. It's hard in retrospect to be impartial to this evil man, but taken on the record's musical merits only it was pretty influential in the way that it evolved the "remix" concept that was corrupted then-recently by the success of the Jennifer Lopez hit reinventions...

"Ignition" returned Kelly to the highest level on Billboard's Hot 100, lingering in the runner-up spot for over a month starting in March of 2003, while also taking five weeks at #2 on their R&B chart. On the radio, the song topped the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart for a week, peaked at #2 on the Mainstream R&B list, led the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format for one week, and even appeared on the older-skewing Adult R&B station panel at #23. Internationally, the single made it to #1 in the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand, and reached the top-40 in the Netherlands (#12), Germany (#36), and France (#38). The Chocolate Factory album, which came out in February of that year, took a week at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, as well as the R&B Albums chart, spending over a year on the lists and selling over two million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2004, Chocolate Factory was nominated for Best Contemporary R&B Album, losing to Beyonce's Dangerously In Love. 

Both Kelly and the album will be back to the series.

(8/10) (mind you this hurts but have to be honest with the music)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

For contrast, here's the "original" version of "Ignition", really a "part one", since it comes right before the remix on the album's tracklist in the middle of the set...

Up tomorrow: R&B group feel worthy.