Robbed hit of the week 7/22/24 - Joe's "More & More"...

 

 

"More & More" - Joe

from the album And Then (2003)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #48

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from R&B singer Joe (Thomas), who had climbed all the way to #1 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart in the beginning of 2001 with "Stutter" from his third album My Name Is Joe. Later that year, Joe returned with his next album Better Days. Despite the momentum from the two huge hits from My Name Is Joe, the album stalled at #32 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, selling just over a half million copies (as compared to My Name Is Joe's three million). Lead single "Let's Stay Home Tonight" was a modest R&B hit at #18, while stopping at #68 on the pop Hot 100 (even a try at a remix with rapper Petey Pablo didn't help) though it did decently on the Adult R&B format at #5, and made the British top-40 at #29. Follow-up "What If A Woman" topped the Adult R&B radio chart for two weeks and hit #21 at R&B and #63 on the pop Hot 100). Nevertheless, at the Grammy Awards in 2003, the single was nominated for Best Male R&B Vocal, losing to the more popular Usher for "U Don't Have To Call", while Better Days was up for Best R&B Album, which India.arie took home for Voyage To India. Also, his duet with Angie Stone originally from her Mahogany Soul album, "More Than A Woman" which hit #63 on the R&B chart., was nominated for the Best Duo/Group R&B Performance Grammy, which went to the "ringer" nod of Stevie Wonder and Take 6's live recording of Wonder's "Love's In Need Of Love Today". 

 

For Joe's fifth release on Jive Records, And Then..., he leaned in on his bedroom loverboy persona. For the lead single from the record, he employed the then-master of the genre, R. Kelly, who hadn't fully succumbed to his felonious sexual proclivities. Kelly wrote and produced "More & More", which sounds quite like the template he used for his own earlier work. The lyrics have absolutely zero new takes other than seducing a woman in the bedroom, and the production is simply a metronome for bumping and grinding. With a music video that puts Joe as a pin-up sex machine, he made an attempt to grab Kelly's then-fading shine...

While "More & More" did better than "Let's Stay Home Tonight" from his last album, going to #15 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart, it stopped just above the halfway mark on their all-genre Hot 100 in December of 2003. On the radio, the song peaked at #23 on the Mainstream R&B Chart and #4 on the older-skewing Adult R&B list. Internationally, where it was paired with follow-up "Ride Wit U" with 50 Cent's rap collective G-Unit on the single, it made the top-40 in the United Kingdom (#12) and Australia (#32). The And Then... album, released in December as the single was cresting, hit #24 on the Billboard 200 sales tally and #4 on the R&B Albums list. 

When "Ride With U" was put out in America, the song went to #22 on the R&B Singles chart and #56 on the Hot 100, and on the radio got to #19 on the Mainstream R&B airplay chart and #28 on the Rhythmic list. A third and final single, "Priceless", peaked at #72 on the R&B Singles chart, and did well at Adult R&B stations, rising to #13. 

(4/10)

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Here's the follow-up and B-side on the international single, "Ride Wit U" with G-Unit. He would return the favor by guesting on their single "Wanna Get To Know You", which brought him back to the top-40...

 and lastly, here's an acoustic performance for last.fm...