Rated Next
Encyclopedia
Rated Next is the debut studio album
by American musical group Next
. After forming, the trio recorded several songs with record producers Prof. T. and Lance Alexander before catching recording artist and producer Kay Gee of Naughty by Nature
's attention. He signed Next to his record label
, Divine Millsin and the album was recorded in Gee's in-home recording studio
. The album was released on September 30, 1997, under Divine Mill and Arista Records
.
Upon its release, Rated Next received generally favorable reviews from music critics, though it received negative criticism for the sexual innuendo
within the lyrics. The album peaked at number 37 on the Billboard 200
and was certified two times platinum
by the Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA). The album spawned three singles: "Butta Love", "Too Close
" and "I Still Love You". "Too Close" topped the Billboard Hot 100
and was certified platinum by the RIAA. "Butta Love" and "I Still Love You" peaked within the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and were both certified gold by the RIAA.
, Ann Nesby, during the group's formation. While performing in Minneapolis, Minnesota
, Next collaborated with record producers Prof. T. and Lance Alexander. They began recording music in the Flyte Tyme recording studio
. A demo
that the trio recorded caught the attention of recording artist and producer Kay Gee of Naughty by Nature
. He called Next three days later and signed the group to his Divine Mill record label. Managed by the Flavor Unit
, Rated Next was recorded in Gee's in-home recording studio. The trio recorded several songs during this time, including "Phone Sex" and "Sexitude". During a "growth period", Next recorded "Butta Love", in which group member Tweety described as "the difference in the freedom we were feeling".
The second single was Too Close
it was released January 27, 1998. The song charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at 1 and on the US R&B/Hip-Hop at 2
The final single was I Still Love You it was released July 21, 1998. The song charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at 14 and on the US R&B/Hip-Hop at 4
, "Butta Love", in August 1997. According to Arista Records
senior vice president of black music
Lionel Ridenour, the success of the single "kept growing to the point where we had worked it from July through December". In order to give the group exposure, Arista promoted Next by having them speak in several radio stations and perform on television program
s. The album's second single, "Too Close
", topped the Billboard Hot 100
and was certified platinum
by the RIAA
. "Butta Love" and "I Still Love You" peaked in the top 20 of the Hot 100 and were certified gold by the RIAA.
noted that the group "swings between party anthems and tender ballads with a sexy flow" on the album. The album received negative criticism due the sexual innuendo
in the lyrics of the songs. Tweety noted that one review wrote: "Even if Next never made it as singers, they could still make it as exotic dancers." Robert Christgau
called the album a collection of "cute pop songs about... their erections and her clitoris".
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by American musical group Next
Next (group)
Next is an American R&B musical group, popular during the late 1990s. They are best known for their hit singles "Too Close" and "Wifey".-History:...
. After forming, the trio recorded several songs with record producers Prof. T. and Lance Alexander before catching recording artist and producer Kay Gee of Naughty by Nature
Naughty by Nature
Naughty by Nature are a Grammy Award-winning American hip hop trio from East Orange, New Jersey that at the time of its formation in 1989 consisted of Treach, Vin Rock, and the DJ Kay Gee...
's attention. He signed Next to his record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
, Divine Millsin and the album was recorded in Gee's in-home recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
. The album was released on September 30, 1997, under Divine Mill and Arista Records
Arista Records
Arista was an American record label. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment and operated under the RCA Music Group. The label was founded in 1974 by Clive Davis, who formerly worked for CBS Records...
.
Upon its release, Rated Next received generally favorable reviews from music critics, though it received negative criticism for the sexual innuendo
Innuendo
An innuendo is a baseless invention of thoughts or ideas. It can also be a remark or question, typically disparaging , that works obliquely by allusion...
within the lyrics. The album peaked at number 37 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
and was certified two times platinum
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
by the Recording Industry Association of America
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
(RIAA). The album spawned three singles: "Butta Love", "Too Close
Too Close
"Too Close" is a 1998 song by R&B group Next, and featuring uncredited vocals from Vee of Koffee Brown. It was the second single released from their debut album Rated Next. The song reached number one on the U.S. Hot 100 and R&B charts and has gone Platinum making it their biggest and best known...
" and "I Still Love You". "Too Close" topped the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
and was certified platinum by the RIAA. "Butta Love" and "I Still Love You" peaked within the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and were both certified gold by the RIAA.
Conception and recording
Next was formed in 1992 by brothers Terrence "T-Low" and Raphael "Tweety" Brown, in addition to Robert "R. L." Huggar. The trio was trained and managed by T-Low's godmotherGodparent
A godparent, in many denominations of Christianity, is someone who sponsors a child's baptism. A male godparent is a godfather, and a female godparent is a godmother...
, Ann Nesby, during the group's formation. While performing in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, Next collaborated with record producers Prof. T. and Lance Alexander. They began recording music in the Flyte Tyme recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
. A demo
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
that the trio recorded caught the attention of recording artist and producer Kay Gee of Naughty by Nature
Naughty by Nature
Naughty by Nature are a Grammy Award-winning American hip hop trio from East Orange, New Jersey that at the time of its formation in 1989 consisted of Treach, Vin Rock, and the DJ Kay Gee...
. He called Next three days later and signed the group to his Divine Mill record label. Managed by the Flavor Unit
Flavor Unit
The Flavor Unit is a crew of emcees and DJs from New York City and Northern New Jersey. It is now known as the Unit. The original version of the crew centered around producer DJ Mark the 45 King. It was Mark's connections to Radio personalities DJ Red Alert and DJ Chuck Chillout, who gave the crew...
, Rated Next was recorded in Gee's in-home recording studio. The trio recorded several songs during this time, including "Phone Sex" and "Sexitude". During a "growth period", Next recorded "Butta Love", in which group member Tweety described as "the difference in the freedom we were feeling".
Singles
Butta Love was the lead single and was released August 19, 1997. The song charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at 16 and on the US R&B/Hip-Hop at 4The second single was Too Close
Too Close
"Too Close" is a 1998 song by R&B group Next, and featuring uncredited vocals from Vee of Koffee Brown. It was the second single released from their debut album Rated Next. The song reached number one on the U.S. Hot 100 and R&B charts and has gone Platinum making it their biggest and best known...
it was released January 27, 1998. The song charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at 1 and on the US R&B/Hip-Hop at 2
The final single was I Still Love You it was released July 21, 1998. The song charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at 14 and on the US R&B/Hip-Hop at 4
Marketing promotion
Next released the album's lead singleLead single
A lead single is usually the first single released by a musician or a band before the release of its home album.During the era of the grammophone record, all music arrived in the marketplace as what is now termed a single, one potential hit song backed by an additional song of generally less...
, "Butta Love", in August 1997. According to Arista Records
Arista Records
Arista was an American record label. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment and operated under the RCA Music Group. The label was founded in 1974 by Clive Davis, who formerly worked for CBS Records...
senior vice president of black music
African American music
African-American music is an umbrella term given to a range of musics and musical genres emerging from or influenced by the culture of African Americans, who have long constituted a large and significant ethnic minority of the population of the United States...
Lionel Ridenour, the success of the single "kept growing to the point where we had worked it from July through December". In order to give the group exposure, Arista promoted Next by having them speak in several radio stations and perform on television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
s. The album's second single, "Too Close
Too Close
"Too Close" is a 1998 song by R&B group Next, and featuring uncredited vocals from Vee of Koffee Brown. It was the second single released from their debut album Rated Next. The song reached number one on the U.S. Hot 100 and R&B charts and has gone Platinum making it their biggest and best known...
", topped the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
and was certified platinum
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
by the RIAA
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
. "Butta Love" and "I Still Love You" peaked in the top 20 of the Hot 100 and were certified gold by the RIAA.
Reception
Rated Next received generally favorable reviews from music critics. Leo Stanley of Allmusic described the album as "an impressive collection of contemporary hip-hop-influenced urban soul". He felt that the group "may get a little too 'risqué' for some tastes", but stated that the lead singer R. L., was "so smooth and charismatic that he can seduce unwilling listeners". Melanie Mcfarland of The Seattle TimesThe Seattle Times
The Seattle Times is a newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, US. It is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington. It has been, since the demise in 2009 of the printed version of the rival Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle's only major daily print newspaper.-History:The Seattle Times...
noted that the group "swings between party anthems and tender ballads with a sexy flow" on the album. The album received negative criticism due the sexual innuendo
Innuendo
An innuendo is a baseless invention of thoughts or ideas. It can also be a remark or question, typically disparaging , that works obliquely by allusion...
in the lyrics of the songs. Tweety noted that one review wrote: "Even if Next never made it as singers, they could still make it as exotic dancers." Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
called the album a collection of "cute pop songs about... their erections and her clitoris".
Track listing
- "Intro" – 1:00
- "Too CloseToo Close"Too Close" is a 1998 song by R&B group Next, and featuring uncredited vocals from Vee of Koffee Brown. It was the second single released from their debut album Rated Next. The song reached number one on the U.S. Hot 100 and R&B charts and has gone Platinum making it their biggest and best known...
" – 4:19 - "Butta Love" – 4:56
- "My Place (Interlude)" – 2:18
- "Cozy" – 4:10
- "Penetration" with Naughty by NatureNaughty by NatureNaughty by Nature are a Grammy Award-winning American hip hop trio from East Orange, New Jersey that at the time of its formation in 1989 consisted of Treach, Vin Rock, and the DJ Kay Gee...
– 4:32 - "You Are My High (Interlude)" – 2:05
- "I Still Love You" – 4:13
- "Stop, Drop & Roll" – 5:03
- "Represent Me" – 4:31
- "Next Experience" featuring Adina HowardAdina HowardAdina Howard is an American R&B singer who rose to prominence during the mid 1990s with her debut album, Do You Wanna Ride? and her debut single, "Freak Like Me". Howard is known for her sexual image and provocative songs...
and Castro – 4:57 - "Problems (featuring Koffee Brown)" – 3:48
- "Do You Think About Me" – 5:41
- "Admit the Rat (Interlude)" – 1:56
- "Sexitude" – 4:31
- "Tastes So Good" – 5:13
- "Phone Sex" – 5:19
- "Rock On" – 3:56
Personnel
As listed on Allmusic.- Lance Alexander – producerRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, engineer - Michael Benabib – photographyPhotographyPhotography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
- Eddie Berkeley – producer
- Marcus Blassingame – stylistWardrobe stylistA wardrobe stylist is the job title of someone who selects the clothing for published editorial features, print or television advertising campaigns, music videos, concert performances, and any public appearances made by celebrities, models or other public figures...
- Coffey Brown – vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, background vocalsBacking vocalistA backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists... - Mike Campbell – guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
- Ian Dalsemer – assistant engineer
- Clive Davis – executive producer
- Chris Gehringer – masteringAudio masteringMastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...
- Deedee Gist – associate producer
- Sheldon Goode – producer, engineer
- Anthony Harrison, Jr. – art directionArt directorThe art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
- Carlton Hitchcock – engineer
- Wesley Hodges – producer
- Adina Howard – performer
- Ken Johnston – engineer
- Kay Gee – producer, engineer, executive producer, mixingAudio mixing (recorded music)In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
- Lamar Kronick – vocoderVocoderA vocoder is an analysis/synthesis system, mostly used for speech. In the encoder, the input is passed through a multiband filter, each band is passed through an envelope follower, and the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated to the decoder...
- Cliff Lighty – producer
- Darren Lighty – producer, engineer
- Mike T. – mixing
- Mr. Walt – producer
- Mufi – producer
- Next – background vocals
- Kevin Pierce – guitar
- Angela Piva – engineer, mixing
- Prof. T. – background vocals, producer, engineer
- Frank Reynolds – producer
- Andy Salas – mixing assistant
- Vernell Sales – background vocals
- Duganz Shaloni – rapRappingRapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
- Steve SolaSteve SolaSteve Sola is an American award winning record producer, sound engineer, songwriter and musician, based in Manhattan, New York. With a career spanning over two decades, he has worked with many major artists, including Mobb Deep and Nas, and he co-wrote the leading track on the Tyler Perry film,...
– mixing assistant - Kieran Walsh – mixing
- Charm Warren – associate producer
Charts
| Chart (1998) | Peak position |
Certification Music recording sales certification Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,... (sales threshold) |
|---|---|---|
| Canadian Albums Chart Canadian Albums Chart The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS... |
20 | |
| U.S. Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
37 | 2× platinum |
| U.S. Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999... |
13 |