Boyz II Men's Fade From Pop Culture

[superdroid73]

With all the talk about the record for most weeks at #1, people always overlook the featured act on the record-making One Sweet Day. These aren't just any guest artists dueting with Mariah, Boyz II Men were literally one of the biggest acts at the time and had a lot of pop crossover appeal. These guys not only had One Sweet Day, but they also went to #1 with End Of The Road and I'll Make Love To You for 14 weeks. These guys were everywhere during the 90's. And yet, once their relevance faded after the 90's ended, so did their relevance in pop culture. Sure, I still see them every now and then on a few commercials and Broadway shows, but their importance in pop culture is almost non-existant in this generation. Sure, they're still remembered by R&B fans, but the general public never talks about them when it comes to 90's music. As a matter of fact, they're very overlooked when it comes to popular 90's music and acts. I haven't seen many people talk or give any love about Boyz II Men. I love Boyz II Men, and I'm actually very disappointed by this. Why have they become so underrated and overlooked by the general audience that were around in the 90's?

[leonagwen]

End of the road was #1 for 13 weeks not 14 weeks.I'll make love to you was #1 for 14 weeks and if Boyz 2 men's next 6 week #1 single On bended knee doesn't knock I'll make love to you out of #1,then I'll make love to you probably would have got like 17 weeks and have the record.

[🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲]

Aug 27, 2017 10:14:24 GMT -5 superdroid73 said:

With all the talk about the record for most weeks at #1, people always overlook the featured act on the record-making One Sweet Day. These aren't just any guest artists dueting with Mariah, Boyz II Men were literally one of the biggest acts at the time and had a lot of pop crossover appeal. These guys not only had One Sweet Day, but they also went to #1 with End Of The Road and I'll Make Love To You for 14 weeks. These guys were everywhere during the 90's. And yet, once their relevance faded after the 90's ended, so did their relevance in pop culture. Sure, I still see them every now and then on a few commercials and Broadway shows, but their importance in pop culture is almost non-existant in this generation. Sure, they're still remembered by R&B fans, but the general public never talks about them when it comes to 90's music. As a matter of fact, they're very overlooked when it comes to popular 90's music and acts. I haven't seen many people talk or give any love about Boyz II Men. I love Boyz II Men, and I'm actually very disappointed by this. Why have they become so underrated and overlooked by the general audience that were around in the 90's?

Agreed. I was watching "The Nineties:Isn't It Ironic" last Sunday on CNN, and they had completely left out Boyz II Men in regards to 90s music.

[Deleted]

Their entire style went out of fashion around the turn of the Millennium when the 80's/90's style of ballads went out of fashion. They weren't able to adapt to the move R&B made in a more hip-hop oriented direction in the 2000's.

I don't think it's surprising they're largely overlooked today. Adult contemporary leaning acts are rarely held in high regard. Some have overcome it to some extent (thinking of acts like Whitney and Mariah), but it's usually because of mix of career longevity, personal "story"/image, some degree of risk-taking, and later recognition of the act's influence on future generations' music. Boyz II Men's hit-making career only spanned about 6-7 years, and they stayed largely in the lane of adult contemporary leaning R&B ballads. That style of music is regarded in a "ha ha remember this?!" nostalgic way now, but its influence is largely absent from mainstream music today. It is very easy for the public to "forget" an act in that position.

[jenglisbe]

It is weird how HUGE Boyz II Men were for a brief period, only to take a huge fall with their third album and then become irrelevant from there on.

I really miss R&B groups.

[Sherane Lamar]

Aug 27, 2017 10:33:17 GMT -5 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 said:

Aug 27, 2017 10:14:24 GMT -5 superdroid73 said:

With all the talk about the record for most weeks at #1, people always overlook the featured act on the record-making One Sweet Day. These aren't just any guest artists dueting with Mariah, Boyz II Men were literally one of the biggest acts at the time and had a lot of pop crossover appeal. These guys not only had One Sweet Day, but they also went to #1 with End Of The Road and I'll Make Love To You for 14 weeks. These guys were everywhere during the 90's. And yet, once their relevance faded after the 90's ended, so did their relevance in pop culture. Sure, I still see them every now and then on a few commercials and Broadway shows, but their importance in pop culture is almost non-existant in this generation. Sure, they're still remembered by R&B fans, but the general public never talks about them when it comes to 90's music. As a matter of fact, they're very overlooked when it comes to popular 90's music and acts. I haven't seen many people talk or give any love about Boyz II Men. I love Boyz II Men, and I'm actually very disappointed by this. Why have they become so underrated and overlooked by the general audience that were around in the 90's?

Agreed. I was watching "The Nineties:Isn't It Ironic" last Sunday on CNN, and they had completely left out Boyz II Men in regards to 90s music.

Let me guess, they focused on some white dudes with like three hits in the midst of what's probably the blackest decade on the charts?

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Aug 27, 2017 10:49:34 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

It is weird how HUGE Boyz II Men were for a brief period, only to take a huge fall with their third album and then become irrelevant from there on.

I really miss R&B groups.

Their falloff with their 1997 was definitely abrupt compared to how huge II was. It's like they didn't even get the chance to fade away, they had a hit with 4 Season of Loneliness (that wasn't as big as most of their hits before that) and then a minor hit with A Song For Mama and that was it. Definitely one to add to the list of strange career trajectories.

[🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲]

Aug 27, 2017 12:21:43 GMT -5 Sherane Lamar said:

Aug 27, 2017 10:33:17 GMT -5 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 said:

Agreed. I was watching "The Nineties:Isn't It Ironic" last Sunday on CNN, and they had completely left out Boyz II Men in regards to 90s music.

Let me guess, they focused on some white dudes with like three hits in the midst of what's probably the blackest decade on the charts?

Lmao, yeah, they mostly focused on grunge bands and gangsta rap artists. They did covered briefly on New Jack Swing, Alanis Morissette, and bubblegum pop acts, but I was very surprised that they failed to mention other popular 90s artists like Mary J. Blige, TLC, and even freaking Celine Dion. 😐

[garrettlen]

Aug 27, 2017 10:14:24 GMT -5 superdroid73 said:

With all the talk about the record for most weeks at #1, people always overlook the featured act on the record-making One Sweet Day. These aren't just any guest artists dueting with Mariah, Boyz II Men were literally one of the biggest acts at the time and had a lot of pop crossover appeal. These guys not only had One Sweet Day, but they also went to #1 with End Of The Road and I'll Make Love To You for 14 weeks. These guys were everywhere during the 90's. And yet, once their relevance faded after the 90's ended, so did their relevance in pop culture. Sure, I still see them every now and then on a few commercials and Broadway shows, but their importance in pop culture is almost non-existant in this generation. Sure, they're still remembered by R&B fans, but the general public never talks about them when it comes to 90's music. As a matter of fact, they're very overlooked when it comes to popular 90's music and acts. I haven't seen many people talk or give any love about Boyz II Men. I love Boyz II Men, and I'm actually very disappointed by this. Why have they become so underrated and overlooked by the general audience that were around in the 90's?

They weren't a featured act on OSD, they were given FULL credit along with Mariah for that song.

[Sherane Lamar]

Aug 27, 2017 12:53:15 GMT -5 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 said:

Aug 27, 2017 12:21:43 GMT -5 Sherane Lamar said:

Let me guess, they focused on some white dudes with like three hits in the midst of what's probably the blackest decade on the charts?

Lmao, yeah, they mostly focused on grunge bands and gangsta rap artists. They did covered briefly on New Jack Swing, Alanis Morissette, and bubblegum pop acts, but I was very surprised that they failed to mention other popular 90s artists like Mary J. Blige, TLC, and even freaking Celine Dion. 😐

Weird how focused some people seem to be on grunge, despite it not being all that popular in the 1990's in comparison to so many other movements, genres, and artists in the 1990's. 

I mean, it's significant in that it birthed Alternative and that it sorta came at a time right as Rock music was starting to lose popularity. 

But still, I find it really bizarre when somebody says they think of "grunge" with they think of 1990's music, since it was still a relatively small and insignificant portion of the industry throughout those ten years. 

[superdroid73]

Aug 27, 2017 13:09:09 GMT -5 Sherane Lamar said:

Aug 27, 2017 12:53:15 GMT -5 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 said:

Lmao, yeah, they mostly focused on grunge bands and gangsta rap artists. They did covered briefly on New Jack Swing, Alanis Morissette, and bubblegum pop acts, but I was very surprised that they failed to mention other popular 90s artists like Mary J. Blige, TLC, and even freaking Celine Dion. 😐

Weird how focused some people seem to be on grunge, despite it not being all that popular in the 1990's in comparison to so many other movements, genres, and artists in the 1990's. 

I mean, it's significant in that it birthed Alternative and that it sorta came at a time right as Rock music was starting to lose popularity. 

But still, I find it really bizarre when somebody says they think of "grunge" with they think of 1990's music, since it was still a relatively small and insignificant portion of the industry throughout those ten years. 

I think it's one of those genres that actually got bigger and more recognized after it was a thing than when it first came out.

[Deleted]

Actually, in my observation r&b fans are in a way even worse than pop/mainstream culture about it, because it seems any time r&b fans bring them up it's to dismiss them in favor of Jodeci or New Edition. I voted underrated mainly for this reason. But I somewhat understand the reason why r&b fans tend to blow them off. The '90s old heads who like to go down memory lane put a high premium on creators and innovators - the ones who produce and/or write, or if neither of those things then the first to show up with a particular style or sound. The Boyz had writing credits here and there, but for the most part their biggest hits were crafted by other writers and producers; and they weren't first at anything. In fact they were discovered, signed, and managed by a New Edition member and named after one of that group's songs...you're more likely to find someone who uses their entire existence to validate NE's greatness than you will find someone who gives a tip of the hat to BIIM for being great.

The other reason I voted them underrated is because it does irk me somewhat that we always refer to OSD's 16-week run as "Mariah's record" when it is a record she shares with BIIM. Even the OP accidentally shaded them by calling them the "featured" act on OSD. (It's Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men; she gave them equal billing.) In fact - and I'm a lamb, but I'm totally willing to acknowledge this - I am sure that OSD only managed to take that record because of BIIM's presence on it. They had already broken the longevity record twice before on their own, after all. I think the longest stay Mariah had at #1 other than OSD was 7 weeks, until WBT came along a decade later. This is not to take away at all from what she brought to the table (we know that Columbia's repression/deletion strategies contributed to her lack of longer runs or even more #1s), but BIIM was very much her equal at that time and brought their own chart strengths to the table as well.

Now alla dat said, for me 'underrated' just means I think they don't get enough respect for the success they did have; I cannot honestly say they were influential in the grand scheme of things. Their peak success really only lasted for two albums (I'd be nice and give them three, but going from 12x platinum to 2x platinum was a rather big drop and they never recovered from it). Their debut single Motownphilly ended up being a major outlier in their discography; all of their hits were mid-tempos and ballads. So they got typecast and then failed to adjust when their style faded out, while Mariah went on to adapt to - nay, be part of the molding process for - the next hip-hop influenced phase of r&b. They got replaced at pop by a younger and whiter Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, who were able to dance and pull off uptempo jams alongside their harmonic ballads. AC/HAC in turn moved on to guitar based, singer-songwriter stuff; no room for BIIM's r&b harmonies there. UAC wasn't even an existing format until mid-'90s so when it did get its start it was mostly on neo-soul and oldies; Boyz II Men wasn't neo-soul and their past hits weren't yet oldies.

I also don't think they've made a concerted enough effort to establish themselves as a veteran r&b act. Being painted as an AC group has led to them being kind of dismissed both by mainstream audiences who have long forgotten them or only regard them as a footnote in pop history, and urban audiences who tend to sniff at acts who don't specifically cater to them. No reason they can't be Charlie Wilson'ing their way through on UAC right now but I don't think they really don't promote themselves in that direction much (at all?).

[Sherane Lamar]

Aug 27, 2017 13:18:48 GMT -5 superdroid73 said:

Aug 27, 2017 13:09:09 GMT -5 Sherane Lamar said:

Weird how focused some people seem to be on grunge, despite it not being all that popular in the 1990's in comparison to so many other movements, genres, and artists in the 1990's. 

I mean, it's significant in that it birthed Alternative and that it sorta came at a time right as Rock music was starting to lose popularity. 

But still, I find it really bizarre when somebody says they think of "grunge" with they think of 1990's music, since it was still a relatively small and insignificant portion of the industry throughout those ten years. 

I think it's one of those genres that actually got bigger and more recognized after it was a thing than when it first came out.

I think Kurt Cobain's suicide probably had a lot to do with that.

[Deleted]

Aug 27, 2017 12:36:14 GMT -5 Devil Marlena Nylund said:

Aug 27, 2017 10:49:34 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

It is weird how HUGE Boyz II Men were for a brief period, only to take a huge fall with their third album and then become irrelevant from there on.

I really miss R&B groups.

Their falloff with their 1997 was definitely abrupt compared to how huge II was. It's like they didn't even get the chance to fade away, they had a hit with 4 Season of Loneliness (that wasn't as big as most of their hits before that) and then a minor hit with A Song For Mama and that was it. Definitely one to add to the list of strange career trajectories.

It was just a perfect storm of bad events, I think. 1997 is the year that music pretty much took a hard left turn in both r&b and pop, squeezing a once-on-trend BIIM out of both boxes. But also, the group was going through conflicts with their label at the time and had some drama going on with each other as well. So maybe they weren't being quite as well supported as they were in the past, and internal bickering made it even harder for them to focus on maintaining their success. Then the tour had issues because Wanya got polyps on his vocal chords and they had to postpone until those healed, and Michael's scoliosis kept him from being able to do most of the dance routines. I think everyone involved was on autopilot at that point.

I wish Can't Let Her Go had been pushed harder/maybe even made lead single for Evolution. It was a rare uptempo, and it's a Puffy production so it sounded current. Actually all of the singles from Evolution should have come from the back half of the album - that's where they stuck all the more modern stuff, but they foolishly gave it filler treatment.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Admittedly I'm not a fan of their brand of R&B (or most slow R&B/AC-leaning R&B) and while I don't care for anything from their first album, I've always loved On Bended Knee and Water Runs Dry, and Thank You is a bop and a half.

[superdroid73]

you know, what's funny is that they became this adult contemporary R&B act when their first single was literally an uptempo jam and they never really made anything like that again since. Thank You was the closest thing, but even that sounds a bit downbeat compared to Motownphilly.

[JOJO SIWA DERANGEMENT SYNDROME]

While I do like a few of their songs such as "End Of The Road", "Water Runs Dry", "Motownphilly", and "Doin' Just Fine", I think the vast majority of their catalogue is terribly bland. They do have great singing voices, but that's about it.

They are currently appearing in a Geico commercial. :sip2:

[Heart Shaped Box]

I fucking love this group.

You put any one of their hits on and you will for sure call it a jam or a classic r&b joint.

I do think they suffered in modernizing themselves.

But the same can be said about Babyface, Jon B, Brian McKnight and a lot of male acts that focused on love ballads.

Yeah they continue to make music and money in music, but their influence is a tiny fraction of what it used to be.

[jenglisbe]

Aug 27, 2017 12:36:14 GMT -5 Devil Marlena Nylund said:

Aug 27, 2017 10:49:34 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

It is weird how HUGE Boyz II Men were for a brief period, only to take a huge fall with their third album and then become irrelevant from there on.

I really miss R&B groups.

Their falloff with their 1997 was definitely abrupt compared to how huge II was. It's like they didn't even get the chance to fade away, they had a hit with 4 Season of Loneliness (that wasn't as big as most of their hits before that) and then a minor hit with A Song For Mama and that was it. Definitely one to add to the list of strange career trajectories.

Not only was II huge, but their debut was huge as well. II built off that success, with "End of the Road" being the bridge. It's one thing for an act to debut huge and then flop/decline with the follow-up (see many acts, from Hootie & The Blowfish to Alanis Morissette to Vanilla Ice to Billy Ray Cyrus and so on), but it's rare for an act to have two huge albums and then essentially do a 180 (especially when the follow-up builds on the first since they means the act has more than established themselves). Very strange.

[jenglisbe]

Aug 27, 2017 13:09:09 GMT -5 Sherane Lamar said:

Aug 27, 2017 12:53:15 GMT -5 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 said:

Lmao, yeah, they mostly focused on grunge bands and gangsta rap artists. They did covered briefly on New Jack Swing, Alanis Morissette, and bubblegum pop acts, but I was very surprised that they failed to mention other popular 90s artists like Mary J. Blige, TLC, and even freaking Celine Dion. 😐

Weird how focused some people seem to be on grunge, despite it not being all that popular in the 1990's in comparison to so many other movements, genres, and artists in the 1990's. 

I mean, it's significant in that it birthed Alternative and that it sorta came at a time right as Rock music was starting to lose popularity. 

But still, I find it really bizarre when somebody says they think of "grunge" with they think of 1990's music, since it was still a relatively small and insignificant portion of the industry throughout those ten years. 

I've always said the influence of grunge (and Nirvana in particular) is overstated because of Cobain's suicide. Yes, grunge was a popular movement, but there are plenty of trends that last a few years and then sort of die off (as grunge did). I get that it was also tied into the 'alternative' movement, but acts like R.E.M. and Red Hot Chili Peppers were finding mainstream success years before Nirvana hit. Cobain's death is what really cemented the legacy of grunge. Meanwhile, hip-hop is still going. A punk-pop act like Green Day was able to re-establish themselves a decade after first making an impact (I'd argue Green Day was a bigger and more influential act than Nirvana). The rap/sung collaboration is still a popular thing.

[Gary]

all but a rare few fade from pop culture. How many of the big early 90s artists actually are still relevant today? After all who stays relevant in pop culture after 25 years?

[superdroid73]

Aug 27, 2017 10:33:17 GMT -5 🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲 said:

Aug 27, 2017 10:14:24 GMT -5 superdroid73 said:

With all the talk about the record for most weeks at #1, people always overlook the featured act on the record-making One Sweet Day. These aren't just any guest artists dueting with Mariah, Boyz II Men were literally one of the biggest acts at the time and had a lot of pop crossover appeal. These guys not only had One Sweet Day, but they also went to #1 with End Of The Road and I'll Make Love To You for 14 weeks. These guys were everywhere during the 90's. And yet, once their relevance faded after the 90's ended, so did their relevance in pop culture. Sure, I still see them every now and then on a few commercials and Broadway shows, but their importance in pop culture is almost non-existant in this generation. Sure, they're still remembered by R&B fans, but the general public never talks about them when it comes to 90's music. As a matter of fact, they're very overlooked when it comes to popular 90's music and acts. I haven't seen many people talk or give any love about Boyz II Men. I love Boyz II Men, and I'm actually very disappointed by this. Why have they become so underrated and overlooked by the general audience that were around in the 90's?

Agreed. I was watching "The Nineties:Isn't It Ironic" last Sunday on CNN, and they had completely left out Boyz II Men in regards to 90s music.

The only time any nostalgia-based show ever talked about Boyz II Men was the VH-1 "I Love The 90's" nostalgia show, which actually talked about them in a full segment. It was really cool to see that. In retrospect, though, it's actually surprising considering the lack of nostalgia treatment they have been getting.

[Caviar]

I grew up listening to this group since my mother was a huge fan. She used to have "Let It Snow" on constant repeat. I loved all their hits including "A Song For Mama".

[dwhite725]

I truly hate to say this because I LOOOOVVVEEEE her but didn't Toni Braxton suffer the same fate? I wouldn't say she's at the level BIIM are right now, but she had quite the tumble. With her though it had a lot to do with label troubles. I think she has had material that worked at the time. I just don't think she got the label support. Obviously with More Than Woman and the Heat to an extent with LA but then she went with Barry Hankerson and that panned out worse.

I'm hoping this next album continues her success at UAC. I think BIIM just got stuck in a style that was working and then had nowhere to go. Also, when was the next album after Evolution?

[Deleted]

Aug 29, 2017 0:32:13 GMT -5 dwhite725 said:

I truly hate to say this because I LOOOOVVVEEEE her but didn't Toni Braxton suffer the same fate? I wouldn't say she's at the level BIIM are right now, but she had quite the tumble. With her though it had a lot to do with label troubles. I think she has had material that worked at the time. I just don't think she got the label support. Obviously with More Than Woman and the Heat to an extent with LA but then she went with Barry Hankerson and that panned out worse.

I'm hoping this next album continues her success at UAC. I think BIIM just got stuck in a style that was working and then had nowhere to go. Also, when was the next album after Evolution?

Yeah, I was thinking of Toni, and Brandy too in a way. Two really big albums followed by a third album that performed well below expectations and never recovering commercially. Brandy's situation was yet another different scenario; Full Moon's promotion got cut short by her pregnancy. But at least Toni and Brandy can both say they had a few UAC or urban hits here and there even after their decline.

The next album after Evolution was Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya in 2000; that would be the last time BIIM (barely) appeared on the Hot 100. They left Motown for Universal, but were still making the same kind of music (I constantly forget that Pass You By wasn't an Evolution single). The album was only certified gold, Pass You By missed the Hot 100 entirely, and Thank You In Advance peaked at #80. They also haven't seen the inside of top 40 on r&b since.


*For some reason their discography page on Wiki is wildly incorrect about their album certs after Evolution. some stan went on there and told some straight up lies lol.

[#LisaRinna]

They're dated. And they talk too much trash about their past collaborators.

[bat1990]

Aug 27, 2017 14:05:38 GMT -5 @antigonerising said:

I also don't think they've made a concerted enough effort to establish themselves as a veteran r&b act. Being painted as an AC group has led to them being kind of dismissed both by mainstream audiences who have long forgotten them or only regard them as a footnote in pop history, and urban audiences who tend to sniff at acts who don't specifically cater to them. No reason they can't be Charlie Wilson'ing their way through on UAC right now but I don't think they really don't promote themselves in that direction much (at all?).

OT: This gets into a larger discussion of HAC and AC being too much of CHR/Pop copycats. Is there a thread for this discussion already?

Aug 27, 2017 20:29:26 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

Not only was II huge, but their debut was huge as well. II built off that success, with "End of the Road" being the bridge. It's one thing for an act to debut huge and then flop/decline with the follow-up (see many acts, from Hootie & The Blowfish to Alanis Morissette to Vanilla Ice to Billy Ray Cyrus and so on), but it's rare for an act to have two huge albums and then essentially do a 180 (especially when the follow-up builds on the first since they means the act has more than established themselves). Very strange.

A similar situation I can think of is En Vogue. Funky Divas was wayyyyy bigger than Born to Sing but definitely built off of their runaway success with "Hold On." Then internal struggles, declining label support, and material that didn't quite fit the mold of where R&B, pop, and AC were headed in 1997 ended their lighting strike.

[Unhinged]

Aug 27, 2017 14:05:38 GMT -5 @antigonerising said:

Actually, in my observation r&b fans are in a way even worse than pop/mainstream culture about it, because it seems any time r&b fans bring them up it's to dismiss them in favor of Jodeci or New Edition. I voted underrated mainly for this reason. But I somewhat understand the reason why r&b fans tend to blow them off. The '90s old heads who like to go down memory lane put a high premium on creators and innovators - the ones who produce and/or write, or if neither of those things then the first to show up with a particular style or sound. The Boyz had writing credits here and there, but for the most part their biggest hits were crafted by other writers and producers; and they weren't first at anything. In fact they were discovered, signed, and managed by a New Edition member and named after one of that group's songs...you're more likely to find someone who uses their entire existence to validate NE's greatness than you will find someone who gives a tip of the hat to BIIM for being great.

The other reason I voted them underrated is because it does irk me somewhat that we always refer to OSD's 16-week run as "Mariah's record" when it is a record she shares with BIIM. Even the OP accidentally shaded them by calling them the "featured" act on OSD. (It's Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men; she gave them equal billing.) In fact - and I'm a lamb, but I'm totally willing to acknowledge this - I am sure that OSD only managed to take that record because of BIIM's presence on it. They had already broken the longevity record twice before on their own, after all. I think the longest stay Mariah had at #1 other than OSD was 7 weeks, until WBT came along a decade later. This is not to take away at all from what she brought to the table (we know that Columbia's repression/deletion strategies contributed to her lack of longer runs or even more #1s), but BIIM was very much her equal at that time and brought their own chart strengths to the table as well.

Now alla dat said, for me 'underrated' just means I think they don't get enough respect for the success they did have; I cannot honestly say they were influential in the grand scheme of things. Their peak success really only lasted for two albums (I'd be nice and give them three, but going from 12x platinum to 2x platinum was a rather big drop and they never recovered from it). Their debut single Motownphilly ended up being a major outlier in their discography; all of their hits were mid-tempos and ballads. So they got typecast and then failed to adjust when their style faded out, while Mariah went on to adapt to - nay, be part of the molding process for - the next hip-hop influenced phase of r&b. They got replaced at pop by a younger and whiter Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, who were able to dance and pull off uptempo jams alongside their harmonic ballads. AC/HAC in turn moved on to guitar based, singer-songwriter stuff; no room for BIIM's r&b harmonies there. UAC wasn't even an existing format until mid-'90s so when it did get its start it was mostly on neo-soul and oldies; Boyz II Men wasn't neo-soul and their past hits weren't yet oldies.

I also don't think they've made a concerted enough effort to establish themselves as a veteran r&b act. Being painted as an AC group has led to them being kind of dismissed both by mainstream audiences who have long forgotten them or only regard them as a footnote in pop history, and urban audiences who tend to sniff at acts who don't specifically cater to them. No reason they can't be Charlie Wilson'ing their way through on UAC right now but I don't think they really don't promote themselves in that direction much (at all?).

I agree with pretty much all of this! Just wanted to mention that Mariah had (2) 8 week No. 1's prior to "One Sweet Day": "Dreamlover" and "Fantasy" both topped the Hot 100 for 8 weeks. :)

[stunnedout]

I have been saying for the longest time it's crazy how they've become forgotten about. I think if they had stuck more to their 1st album sound they would be less forgotten about in the black community

[elementd5]

They are absolutely not forgotten about, especially not in the Black/Urban community. Everyone knows their singles. They're classics.