As most music fans know, songs that reach the Top 40 in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart are typically considered to be hits and tend to get all the glory...although even some of them become thought of forgotten hits. In this day and age of streaming and finding music from many different sources, maybe this adage is a little less true. At any rate, I want to show some love to these great songs. Maybe they performed well on another genre-specific chart but didn't make it to the Top 40 on the Hot 100 or onto the Hot 100 at all. Or maybe I charted them on my own chart, but they didn't make much of an impact at all. Either way, let's go back to the 2010s for the time being.
"Blended Family (What You Do For Love)" was released as the second single from Here, the sixth album release by R&B singer/songwriter Alicia Keys. About adjusting to life in a blended family following divorce and one or both parents moving on with someone else, Keys initially wrote it for her stepson, Kasseem Dean Jr., the son of her husband, producer Swizz Beatz. In case you forgot or weren't aware, when Keys and Swizz Beatz first got together in the late 2000s, there was much drama and back and forth in public between the new couple and Swizz Beatz's first wife, singer Mashonda Tifrere. But eventually all parties made peace and "Blended Family" was Keys' way of letting Dean Jr. know that everyone involved now got along and more importantly, everyone loves him. It just goes to show that when you lead with respect, understanding, and love, anything is possible. The song also served as a collaboration with A$AP Rocky, who added lyrics about his own experiences as part of a blended family growing up. And, as an added bit of trivia, the members of Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians were given songwriting credits due to its sample of their most well-known song, 1989's "What I Am." "Blended Family" was not a hit on the charts anywhere upon release. In the U.S., it didn't make it onto the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart but did peak at #9 on the magazine's Adult R&B chart. As for me, it went all the way to #1 on my chart for a couple weeks in early 2017 after debuting near the end of 2016.
