Boyz II Men
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Boyz II Men is an American R&B/soul singing group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1988 as a quintet, Boyz II Men found fame as a quartet, with members Wanya Morris, Michael McCary, Shawn Stockman, and Nathan Morris, on Motown Records during the early 1990s.
Based on sales, Boyz II Men is one of the most successful R&B groups of all time. Having recorded five #1 pop hits between 1992 and 1997 and have since topped sales of 25 million records. Three of their #1 hits, "End of the Road", "I'll Make Love to You", and "One Sweet Day" (a duet with Mariah Carey), set and broke records for the longest period of time a single remained at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Boyz II Men were originally signed to Motown Records from 1990 to 2000, at which point they were moved to parent label Universal Records. After the 2000 album Nathan Shawn Michael Wanya, Boyz II Men moved to Arista Records. In 2003, Michael McCary left the group due to chronic back problems resulting from scoliosis. As of 2005, Wanya Morris, Shawn Stockman, and Nathan Morris continue to tour and record as a trio.
Contents |
History
Beginnings
The group that later became Boyz II Men was founded in 1988 at the High School of the Creative and Performing Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There, friends Nathan Morris and Marc Nelson had put together several various R&B singing groups, all of which fell through. Eventually, they recruited tenors Wanya Morris and Shawn Stockman and bass Michael McCary, and began performing as "Unique Attraction".
The members of Unique Attraction idolized New Edition, one of the most popular R&B groups of the 1980s. They found inspiration in New Edition's harmonies and routines, and eventually renamed itself "Boyz II Men" after the title of one of New Edition's songs.
Sneaking backstage after a 1989 concert performed by Bell Biv DeVoe (a New Edition spin-off group consisting of Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, and Ronnie DeVoe), Boyz II Men performed an a cappella rendition of New Edition's "Can You Stand the Rain" for New Editon/BBD leader Michael Bivins. Bivins was impressed by the group, and began plans to sign them to Motown Records through a production deal with his Biv Ten Records company. Before the group began recording, however, Marc Nelson left Boyz II Men because of personality conflicts, reducing the quintet to a quartet.
Cooleyhighharmony
Boyz II Men's first album, Cooleyhighharmony, was released on Motown in 1991, executive produced by Michael Bivins. Cooleyhighharmony's drum-heavy new jack swing sound and multi-layered sampled backdrops were similar to that of Bell Biv DeVoe's own work, but featured smooth classic-soul styled vocals in place of BBD's rapping and brassier singing. This style was dubbed "hip hop doo wop" by the group and Bivins, who presented Boyz II Men and adolescent R&B group Another Bad Creation to the public as BBD's protégés.
Boyz II Men's first single, the Dallas Austin-produced "Motownphilly" featured BBD as guest performers, and was accompanied with a music video that presented the group in hip hop style. Their second single was a cover of a classic Motown tune, G.C. Cameron's "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" from the 1975 film Cooley High, while "Uhh Ahh" served as the third single.
From the beginning, Boyz II Men featured all four members trading leads, avoiding the usual R&B group arrangement of one or two lead singers and a team of background singers. The multiple-lead arrangements became a Boyz II Men trademark, and it became typical to hear Wanya Morris' vibrato-heavy tenor, Shawn Stockman's smoother tenor voice, Nathan Morris' more low-key tenor, and Michael McCary's deep bass (notably used in spoken-word sections of many Boyz II Men hits) trading bars in each song.
The album's liner notes identified nicknames for each member of the group. These nicknames were devised in collaboration with Bivins in an attempt at marketing. Wanya was "Squirt," Shawn was "Slim," Michael was simply "Bass," and Nathan was named after a soap opera character who brandished a nerdy style, "Alex Vanderpool."
In time, Wanya Morris would become something of the de-facto leader of the group, handling its operations and business interests, but the group never presented one man as more important than the other.
Cooleyhighharmony was a major success for the group, Bivins, and Motown. It eventually sold over nine million copies, "Motownphilly" and "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" were #1 R&B hits and top five U.S. pop hits, the album won the 1992 Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, and Boyz II Men joined Hammer's high-profile 2 Legit 2 Quit tour as an opening act. While traveling the country, their tour manager Khalil Roundtree was murdered, and the group's future performances of "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" were dedicated to him.
"End of the Road"
While on tour in 1992, Boyz II Men briefly returned to the studio to record the single "End of the Road", co-written and produced by Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, for the soundtrack to Eddie Murphy's film Boomerang. "End of the Road" became a record-breaking success, remaining at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for thirteen weeks, breaking the previous record of 11 weeks set by Elvis Presley with "Don't Be Cruel"/"Hound Dog" in 1956. Cooleyhighharmony was reissued in 1993, with "End of the Road" added as a special bonus track. This success quickly cemented Boyz II Men's status as stars, and increased anticipation for their second album.
II
1994 saw the release of Boyz II Men's second album, II. Most of the tracks on II were written and produced by Babyface and the successful team of Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis; Michael Bivins distanced himself from Boyz II Men to focus on developing new acts. Several of II's tracks became major hit singles, among them Jam & Lewis's "On Bended Knee", and Babyface's "I'll Make Love to You" and "Water Runs Dry". "Thank You" and the hip hop soul track "Vibin'" both missed the U.S. Top 20; but "Water Runs Dry" peaked at #2, and "I'll Make Love to You and "On Bended Knee" became #1 hits.
"I'll Make Love to You" notably broke "End of the Road's" thirteen-week record at #1, by spending fourteen weeks at the top of the chart (a feat equaled earlier that year by Whitney Houston's cover of "I Will Always Love You"). "On Bended Knee" replaced "I'll Make Love to you" at #1, making Boyz II Men the third act to replace themselves at #1, after Elvis and The Beatles. Meanwhile, II sold in excess of twelve million copies in the United States alone, becoming one of the best-selling albums ever released by an R&B group act.
1995: Collaborations
During 1995, Boyz II Men made several notable appearances on other artists' recordings. Wanya Morris appeared on Brandy's single "Brokenhearted", while the group as a whole supported LL Cool J on his 1995 hit "Hey Lover".
It was the group's collaboration with Mariah Carey that proved to be the most notable. "One Sweet Day", a duet between Carey and Boyz II Men included on Carey's 1995 LP Daydream, became a smash success, and topped the US pop charts for a record sixteen weeks.
Inspirations, influence, and impact
By this point, Boyz II Men were a popular act, not just in the U.S, but worldwide. Popular with both mainstream and R&B audiences, Boyz II Men became recognized as something of a 1990s version of The Temptations, the 1960s Motown act that became the label's best-selling male group act. Many of the elements that made The Temptations, other classic Motown artists such as The Four Tops and Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, and Boyz II Men's mentors New Edition successful were adapted by the group, including a clean-cut image, smooth harmonies, and synchronized dance and performance movements. The members of Boyz II Men were particularly noted for their vocal abilities, and helped continue a trend in R&B towards an emphasis on emotive singing with significant use of melisma, a trademark of Wanya Morris' singing.
The influences of the group were felt and heard across throughout the R&B world, with several R&B competitors showing obvious inspiration from Boyz II Men's work and singing style, among them, Shai, Soul for Real, BLACKstreet, All 4 One, and later Dru Hill, Jagged Edge, and (featuring old Boyz II Men member Marc Nelson) Az Yet. Boyz II Men's closest competitor, Uptown Records act Jodeci, were, with their grittier and more sexually charged style, the polar opposite of Boyz II Men's wholesomeness. Jodeci's style had its own followers (many of them, Dru Hill and Jagged Edge in particular, they shared with Boyz II Men), but their influence on the music industry as a whole was not as widespread as that of Boyz II Men.
Also notable is that several record producers, Lou Pearlman in particular, saw Boyz II Men's popularity with white audiences, and developed several acts in the same vein as Boyz II Men, but with white male singers instead of black ones. Because of this, Boyz II Men is often considered to have started the "boy band" craze that reached a climax by the end of the 1990s, with groups such as The Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, going on to widespread international success, and others, such as Motown act 98 Degrees, finding more moderate mainstream success.
Evolution and label conflicts
Riding high on the success of the most successful act ever on the label, Motown issued The Remix Collection, a compilation of remixes of various Boyz II Men songs from Cooleyhighharmony and II. The group itself had opposed the release of the collection, and as a result friction arose between the label and the group. Boyz II Men set up their record label Stonecreek (which released material by artists such as Uncle Sam) to be distributed by Columbia Records, not Motown. As a result, tensions were high when it came time to release the next Boyz II Men album.
Evolution was released in 1997 to mixed reviews and sold two million copies, far below II's 12 million and Cooleyhighharmony's 9 million. Only one of Evolution's singles, the Jam/Lewis-penned "Four Seasons of Loneliness", made it to #1. The second single, the Babyface-helmed "A Song for Mama" (the theme song to the Babyface-produced film Soul Food) was a Top 10 hit, but the follow-up "Can't Let Her Go" underperformed.
As the label problems mounted, health problems began to take their toll on the group. While on tour to support the Evolution album, Wanya Morris developed a polyp on his vocal cords, and the group was forced to postpone part of the tour until he recovered. Meanwhile, Michael McCary was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, which limited his ability to dance at live performances; the other three members eventually resorted to having McCary seated on a stool while they did all the dancing themselves.
Boyz II Men's final Top 40 hit was "I Will Get There", a Diane Warren-penned single released in support of the soundtrack to DreamWorks' first animated feature, The Prince of Egypt. "I Will Get There" is also notable for being one of the few Boyz II Men hit singles completely sung a capella.
Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya
In 1999, Motown's parent company, Polygram, was bought by Universal Music Group. Amidst the major corporate restructure, Motown was merged with UMG's Universal Records, where Boyz II Men found themselves reassigned.
Their only studio LP for Universal, 2000's Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya, was chiefly written and produced by the group itself, in an attempt to update their sound and ward off critics who questioned the group's reliance on Babyface's hit-making songcraft. While the critics were more receptive to Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya than they had been to its predecessor, the LP only sold 500,000 copies, and although its two singles, "Pass You By" and "Thank You in Advance" received media attention, neither ultimately became hits.
Full Circle and "The Color of Love"
Boyz II Men departed from Universal in 2001, and the label released a greatest hits collection, Legacy: The Greatest Hits Collection, to close out their contract. Signing a new deal with Arista Records in 2002, Boyz II Men began recording the Full Circle album, and recruited Babyface for a new single, "The Color of Love". Arista commissioned a high-budget music video, shot in four different locales by four different directors: supervising director Little X filmed scenes featuring Michael McCary in India, Hype Williams filmed Sean Stockman in Tokyo, Benny Boom filmed Nathan Morris in Ghana, and Chris Robinson filmed Wanya Morris in Puerto Rico and finally all were filmed in New York. The resulting music video had a high-profile debut on BET, but failed to make an impact, and Full Circle, like Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya before it, sold just over 500,000 copies.
Throwback
On January 30, 2003, Michael McCary left the group and retired from performing. Arista terminated Boyz II Men's contract on April 30, and the remaining three members took a temporary hiatus from the music industry. After a year out of the spotlight, Boyz II Men created the independent label MSM Music (distributed through Koch Records), and released the Throwback, Vol. 1 LP, a collection of covers of songs such as The Dazz Band's "Let it Whip", Michael Jackson's "Human Nature", and, as the single, Bobby Caldwell's "What You Won't Do for Love". Throwback, Vol. 1 reached #59 on the Billboard 200, and Vol. 2 is expected in the near future. The group launched an independent tour of North America and Asia in support of the Throwback series.
Members
- Wanya Morris (1988 - )
- Shawn Stockman (1988 - )
- Nathan Morris (1988 - )
- Michael McCary (1988 – 2003)
- Marc Nelson (1988 – 1989)
Audio samples
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Discography
Regular studio albums
| Year | Album title | Chart position | Sales status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991: | Cooleyhighharmony reissued in 1993 with additional tracks | #3 US, #7 UK | 9x Platinum US |
| 1994: | II also issued in Spanish language version | #1 (12 weeks) US, #17 UK | 12x Platinum (Diamond) US |
| 1997: | Evolution also issued in Spanish language version | #1 (1 week) US, #2 CAN | 2x Platinum US |
| 2000: | Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya | #4 US | Gold US |
| 2002: | Full Circle | #10 US | Gold US |
| 2004: | Throwback, Vol. 1 | #54 US |
Compilations and special albums
| Year | Album title | Chart position |
|---|---|---|
| 1992: | Christmas Interpretations (Christmas LP) | #19 US |
| 1995: | The Remix Collection Platinum US (remix LP) | #17 US |
| 1999: | The Ballad Collection (compilation LP) | |
| 2001: | Legacy: The Greatest Hits Collection (greatest hits LP, deluxe edition in 2004) | #89 US |
| 2003: | 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Boyz II Men (greatest hits LP) |
Singles
| Year | Single title | Chart position |
|---|---|---|
| 1991: | "Motownphilly" | #3 US, #23 UK - 1992 release |
| 1991: | "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" | #2 US |
| 1991: | "Uhh Ahh" | #16 US |
| 1992: | "Please Don't Go" | #49 US |
| 1992: | "End of the Road" | #1 US, #1 UK |
| 1993: | "In the Still of the Nite (I'll Remember)" | #3 US, #27 UK |
| 1993: | "Let It Snow" | #32 US |
| 1994: | "I'll Make Love To You" | #1 US, #5 UK |
| 1994: | "On Bended Knee" | #1 US, #20 UK |
| 1995: | "Thank You" | #21 US, #26 UK |
| 1995: | "Water Runs Dry" | #2 US, #24 UK |
| 1995: | "Vibin'" | #56 US |
| 1995: | "One Sweet Day" (Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men) | #1 US, #6 UK |
| 1995: | "I Remember" | #46 US |
| 1995: | "Hey Lover" (LL Cool J featuring Boyz II Men) | #3 US, #17 UK |
| 1997: | "4 Seasons of Loneliness" | #1 US, #10 UK |
| 1997: | "A Song for Mama" | #7 US, #34 UK |
| 1998: | "Can't Let Her Go" | #23 UK |
| 1999: | "I Will Get There" | #32 US, #23 US R&B |
| 2000: | "Pass You By" | #27 US R&B |
| 2000: | "Thank You in Advance" | #80 US, #40 US R&B |
| 2002: | "The Color of Love" | #51 US R&B |
| 2002: | "Relax Your Mind" (featuring Faith Evans) | #52 US R&B |
| 2004: | "What You Won't Do for Love" | #60 US R&B |
See also
References
- Huey, Steve. "Boyz II Men". All Music Guide. Retrieved from http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:fyeb97i7krst~T00 on August 17, 2005.