Boyz II Men - Motown A Journey Through Hitsville USA (2007)
Motown A Journey Through Hitsville USA by Boyz II Men
Career Overview
While rap music was the music of choice on the urban charts and radio playlists by the late-’80s/early-’90s, Boyz II Men re-introduced the merits of soul and contemporary R&B, laden with perfectly executed harmony vocals. The group became one of the most successful chart acts of the ’90s, especially when their 1992 single, “The End Of The Road,” set the record for most weeks atop the Billboard charts.
Biography
This versatile close-harmony soul unit enjoyed an almost unprecedented level of success during the early 90s, beginning with 1991’s US Top 3 debut single “Motownphilly“. The original line-up comprised Wanya “Squirt” Morris (b. 29 July 1973, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA), Michael “Bass” McCary (b. 16 December 1972, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA), Shawn “Slim” Stockman (b. 26 September 1972, USA) and Nathan “Alex-Vanderpool” Morris (b. 18 June 1971, USA).
The four men met at the Philadelphia High School Of Creative And Performing Arts, forming the band in 1988. Michael Bivins of Bell Biv DeVoe took the quartet under his wing and brought them, fittingly, to Motown Records. Their debut album was one side dance, one side ballad, and was a huge seller in the USA. By the middle of 1993 the album was still high on the US chart with sales of over seven million copies. The previous autumn, the soundtrack song “End Of The Road” topped the US charts for a mammoth 13 weeks and provided the quartet with a UK chart-topper.
The winning formula was repeated with uncanny accuracy in 1994, with the follow-up album (imaginatively titled II) becoming a huge hit. It spawned three of the best-selling singles in US chart history, with “I’ll Make Love To You” (at the top for 14 weeks), “On Bended Knee” (at the top for 6 weeks) and “One Sweet Day” (with Mariah Carey, number 1 for an astonishing 16 weeks). Evolution featured all-star contributions from Sean “Puffy” Combs, Keith Crouch, Babyface and Jimmy Jam And Jerry Lewis.
The quartet set up their own label, Stonecreek, and after a three year hiatus launched Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya onto a market now saturated with a new generation of R&B vocal groups. The quartet’s brand of smooth, inoffensive soul, though classy as always, struggled to make a commercial impact in a less discerning and more sexually explicit climate.
They subsequently signed a new recording contract with Arista Records, and returned in July 2002 with Full Circle. This proved to be the last album to feature McCary who announced his retirement from the music business not long afterwards. The remaining trio formed their own MSM Music Group label and set about recording a new album Throwback.
Copyright Muze UK Ltd. 1989 - 2005
About The Album “Motown A Journey Through Hitsville USA”
In mid-2007, the group resigned with Universal Records and released the LP Motown: A Journey Through Hitsville USA through Decca Records. The LP is a covers album featuring songs from the Motown Records catalog, co-produced by Randy Jackson of American Idol fame. The Motown album includes covers of songs by The Temptations (”Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)“), Marvin Gaye (”Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing“, “Mercy Mercy Me“), Smokey Robinson & the Miracles (”The Tracks of My Tears“), and even Boyz II Men themselves (an a capella version of “End of the Road“).
Just my Imagination
Motown A Journey Through Hitsville USA album tracklists are:
01
Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)
02
It’s Same Old Song/Reach Out I’ll Be There
03
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
04
Tracks Of My Tears
05
Money (That’s What I Want)
06
Easy
07
I Was Made To Love Her
08
All This Love
09
Ribbon In The Sky (A Cappella)
10
Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing (Feat. Patti LaBelle)
11
There’ll Never Be
12
Got To Be There
13
War
14
End Of The Road (Feat. Brian McKnight)
Buy the CD album Motown A Journey Through Hitsville USA
Full Mp3 Downloads Motown A Journey Through Hitsville USA
No related posts.
