Boyz II Men

With its smooth brand of doo-wop/hip-hop, Boyz II Men has spearheaded the renaissance of the R&B vocal group, in the process revitalizing Motown Records (the band has become Motown's best-selling act, and its second album, Boyz II Men II, is the label's best-selling album of all time). The Boyz have sold over thirty million albums worldwide as of the first half of 1997, and have managed to capture plenty of awards--not to mention plenty of hearts--along the way.

The Boyz II Men story begins in 1988, at the Creative & Performing Arts High School of Philadelphia, where Shawn Stockman, Wanya Morris, Nate Morris (no relation), and Mike McCary first discovered that the sum of their four voices was definitely greater than the individual parts. Besides singing at school, they honed their harmonizing skills by singing on street corners and on subway platforms, billing themselves as Unique Attraction. Believing that things would start to happen for them professionally if they could just get heard by the right person, they charmed their way backstage at a 1989 show at the Philadelphia Civic Center, where they knew their idol, Michael Bivins (of New Edition and Bel Biv Devoe fame) would be. When they tracked Bivins down, they convinced him to listen to their a cappella version of the New Edition song "Can You Stand the Rain." Also present in the impromptu audience were Paula Abdul, Cherrelle, Keith Sweat, and Kid 'n Play. Bivins was definitely impressed by their singing: he gave them his phone number, and after they had pestered him enough, he became their manager and succeeded in negotiating a deal for them with Motown. Bivins suggested that they change their name, and so Unique Attraction became Boyz II Men, which is the title of a New Edition song off the Heartbreak album.

The newly baptized Boyz II Men's debut album, Cooleyhighharmony--named after a 1975 blaxploitation comedy called Cooley High--was released in May of 1991. It didn't take long for the band to conquer the radio airwaves: the first single, "Motownphilly," vaulted up to No. 3 on the Billboard singles chart by July. The second single, a remake of "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday" (the song originally appeared on the Cooley High soundtrack), hit the No. 2 position in October. To date, the album has sold more than seven million copies in the U.S. alone.

In 1992, just as the excitement over Cooleyhighharmony seemed to be dying down a bit, the soundtrack of the Eddie Murphy movie Boomerang, which featured the Boyz II Men track "End of the Road," was released. The single hovered at No. 1 for a phenomenal thirteen weeks, beating an eleven-week record set by Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel/Hound Dog" single back in 1956. The band's record was broken just a few months later by Whitney Houston, whose sentimental "I Will Always Love You" clinched the top spot for fourteen weeks. But Boyz II Men seemed destined to hold that "most weeks at No. 1" crown: the band tied Houston's record with the single, "I'll Make Love to You," in 1994, and then went on to surpass it the following year with "One Sweet Day," a collaboration with Mariah Carey that held solid at No. 1 for sixteen weeks.

In October of 1993, the Boyz released the Christmas Interpretations album, a collection of both traditional and original Christmas songs. Their version of "Let It Snow" cracked the Top 40 for one week, entering in at No. 32, and the album itself hit the Top 20. By the time the Boyz released Boyz II Men II in September of 1994, they had become the poster boys for a new era of R&B music. Their magnificent vocals provided a welcome alternative to the lip-sync trash of Milli Vanilli and the white-boy rap of Vanilla Ice, and their looks and smooth ways made them instant teen idols. Magazines outdid themselves trying to come up with ways to categorize the four singers, and the results were pretty amusing: Wanya was generally portrayed as the hyperactive one; Nate, the serious one; Shawn, the mellow one; and Mike became known as the Barry White of his generation. But they had already come up with their own stage personas: Mike "Bass" McCary, Wanya "Squirt" Morris, Shawn "Slim" Stockman, and Nate "Alexander Vanderpool" Morris (the moniker belongs to a character from Morris's favorite soap opera).

Boyz II Men II was recorded in a live-in studio called Granny's House, located in the Southwest desert . The band had attempted to record the album at home in Philly, but found that they were too distracted by friends, family, and neighbors to get anything accomplished. The first single from the album, "I'll Make Love to You," was a Babyface collaboration, and it spent fourteen weeks at No. 1. The second, "On Bended Knee," a Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis collaboration, immediately followed the first to the top of the chart, where it camped out for six weeks. Once again, the guys were breaking records: charting two songs back-to-back in the No. 1 slot put the Boyz in a very small and select company of artists who have accomplished the same feat--Elvis and the Beatles. The album itself debuted at No. 1 in the States, becoming the first Motown album to do so since Stevie Wonder's 1976 release Songs in the Key of Life. The record sold an amazing six million copies worldwide during its first four months in release, and eventually went on to sell more than eleven million copies in the U.S. alone.

Boyz II Men II was followed by The Remix Collection in November of 1995. The album included an edgy remix of "Vibin'" that featured additional vocals from Treach, Craig Mack, Busta Rhymes, and Method Man; it also included the No. 3-charting "Hey Lover," an LL Cool J song for which the Boyz sang backing vocals.
The band's amazing chart success and massive sales numbers were made all the sweeter when it racked up a slew of preeminent music awards, including Grammy, American Music, Soul Train, and NAACP Image honors. Boyz II Men performed before Pope John Paul II during his 1995 American visit, and sang the national anthem at the closing ceremony of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. In 1996, the band was inducted into the Philadelphia Hall of Fame.

Following the release of II, the Boyz took a year-and-a-half break before commencing work on their next album. Not that they didn't keep plenty busy: all of them bought houses and spent time with their families; they also built their own recording studio, Stone Creek, outside of Philadelphia. Stockman made his solo debut on the soundtrack to Mr. Holland's Opus with the song "Visions of a Sunset." Nate Morris opened a unisex hair salon in Philadelphia called Morris' International Styling.

At the urging of their frequent collaborators, Babyface, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis, the Boyz tried their hand at producing on their next album, Evolution, which hit stores in September of 1997. The band wrote or co-wrote ten of the thirteen tracks on the album, though the first single, "4 Seasons of Loneliness," was written by Jam and Lewis. Three of the tracks--"Come On," "Can't Let Her Go," and "To the Limit"--were co-written and co-produced by the ubiquitous Sean "Puffy" Combs. The Boyz commemorated their pre-fame Unique Attraction days by including an a cappella version of "Can You Stand the Rain," the song that first brought them to the attention of Michael Bivins. All that remains to be seen is what records the Boyz will break this time around.

According to no less an authority than the RIAA, Boyz II Men are the most commercially successful R&B group of all time. They've sold ludicrous numbers of records and been involved in three of the longest-running number one pop singles in history, and they've done it as a unit of equals. In fact, their four-part harmonies blend so smoothly that most of the general public would be hard-pressed to name any of the group's individual members. And that's no reflection on their skill as singers; Boyz II Men were among the first male urban soul artists to adopt the sort of hyper-technical melodic embellishments that were popularized by virtuosic divas like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. Their early music was indebted to new jack swing, but the group quickly found their forté in lush, soulful ballads, where their harmonies could be showcased to greatest effect. Boyz II Men may never duplicate their incredible run of success during the first half of the '90s, but that's a near-impossible task for anyone, even with the broad-based appeal of their clean-cut romantic image.

Boyz II Men were formed in 1988 at Philadelphia's High School of the Creative and Performing Arts. Founding members Nathan Morris and Marc Nelson had been singing together for several years, but had trouble keeping a group together simply due to members graduating. Things finally stabilized when they hooked up with Wanya Morris, Shawn Stockman, and bass vocalist Michael McCary; calling themselves Unique Attraction, the quintet performed a well-received Valentine's Day show for their school and developed a repertoire that leaned heavily on New Edition songs (one of which, "Boys to Men," gave them their name). Their big break came in 1989, when they snuck backstage at a Bell Biv DeVoe concert and wowed group member Michael Bivins (also formerly of New Edition, and a budding music entrepreneur) with an a cappella version of New Edition's "Can You Stand the Rain." Bivins offered them a deal right there, but Nelson would not stick around to be part of it; personality conflicts led to his departure soon after (he later resurfaced as a member of Az Yet).

Down to a quartet, Boyz II Men entered the studio to record their debut album, Cooleyhighharmony, for the legendary Motown Records. Backed by the new jack production then in vogue, they dubbed their sound "hip-hop doo wop," though as a vocal harmony group they were more indebted to R&B of the '60s and '70s. Cooleyhighharmony was released in 1991, and its first single, the uptempo dance track "Motownphilly," rocketed up the charts, going Top Five pop and number one R&B on its way to platinum sales. The a cappella ballad "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday," a cover of a song from the film Cooley High, also hit the pop Top Five and topped the R&B charts, and went gold. Meanwhile, the album won a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. Boyz II Men joined MC Hammer's Too Legit to Quit tour in 1992, but tragedy struck when tour manager Khalil Roundtree was shot and killed in Chicago; the group rededicated "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" to him.

The tragedy notwithstanding, Boyz II Men had had an extremely auspicious beginning to their career. Still, nothing could have foreshadowed the group's Midas touch over the next few years. Briefly entering the studio in between concert gigs, Boyz II Men cut a smooth Babyface ballad called "End of the Road" for the soundtrack of the Eddie Murphy film Boomerang. Released as a single, it became not just a blockbuster, but one of the biggest hits in history; it spent 13 weeks at number one on the pop charts, an incredible run that broke the record of 11 weeks Elvis Presley had held ever since 1956 with the double-sided single "Don't Be Cruel"/"Hound Dog." "End of the Road" won a slew of awards and cemented Boyz II Men's star status beyond any doubt; while crafting their next album during 1993, the group released a couple of placeholders: a Top Five cover of the Five Satins doo wop classic "In the Still of the Nite," from the TV movie The Jacksons: An American Dream, and the holiday album Christmas Interpretations. (Also that year, Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" broke "End of the Road"'s record with 14 weeks at number one.)

The post-"End of the Road" buzz helped make Boyz II Men's next album, II, an instant smash when it arrived in 1994, even though it didn't include "End of the Road." Produced by the likes of Babyface and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, rather than Bivins (who wanted to concentrate on developing new artists), II debuted at number one on its way to sales of over 12 million copies. The first single, "I'll Make Love to You" (also penned by Babyface), raced up the charts and wound up tying Houston's short-lived record, with 14 weeks of its own at number one -- a staggering feat in itself, made all the more amazing by the fact that the group had already set the record once. Moreover, the follow-up single, "On Bended Knee," actually replaced "I'll Make Love to You" at number one for a six-week run of its own; only Elvis and the Beatles had ever replaced themselves at number one. "Thank You" was a relative flop, not quite making the pop Top 20, but "Water Runs Dry" returned them to the Top Five, falling one slot short of number one. Boyz II Men spent much of 1995 touring the U.S. and beyond in support of II, and also opened their own recording studio. They spent some time recording collaborations with other artists: Wanya Morris duetted with Brandy on the hit "Brokenhearted," and the whole group sang on Michael Jackson's "History" and LL Cool J's "Hey Lover." The biggest one, however, was a song done with Mariah Carey called "One Sweet Day." Featuring two of the biggest chart powerhouses in the industry, "One Sweet Day" was virtually a guaranteed blockbuster, and it went on to spend 16 weeks at number one on the pop charts, debuting there in December 1995; it was the third such record-setting single of Boyz II Men's career.

Over the group's objections, Motown released a piece of cash-in product titled The Remix Collection in late 1995; in retaliation, Boyz signed a distribution deal with Sony, not Motown, for their new vanity label, Stonecreek. It was the beginning of a souring relationship that only worsened upon the release of Boyz II Men's next album, Evolution, in 1997. The record started out strong, debuting at number one and sending "4 Seasons of Loneliness" to the same position on the singles charts; its Top Ten follow-up, "A Song for Mama," gave Boyz II Men their record-setting seventh platinum single. However, Motown was unable to throw its full promotional muscle behind the record (perhaps because of their transition to a new label president), meaning that Evolution didn't have nearly the shelf life of II, selling only two million copies. It didn't help that critics were less than enthusiastic, questioning the album's title since the music itself was more of the same. The group was also forced to postpone parts of their supporting tour when Wanya Morris developed a benign polyp on his vocal cords. He recovered fully, though, and in early 1999, amid major record company mergers, the group got their contract transferred from Motown to Universal.

For their next album, Boyz II Men assumed greater control over songwriting and production, handling a greater share of each by themselves. The resulting record, Nathan Michael Shawn Wanya, was released in 2000, and while it received better reviews than Evolution, it continued the group's downward commercial slide, only going gold and producing a smaller-scale hit in "Pass You By." The group subsequently signed with Arista Records. In summer 2002, Boyz II Men kept with their sophisticated approach for the aptly titled release Full Circle. Michael McCary left the group in 2003 due to problems with scoliosis. In 2004 the remaining members released Throwback, an album filled with covers of their favorite songs. Their 2007 effort The Remedy was initially only available through the band's official website. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide