The Revival
Encyclopedia
The Revival is the second studio album
by American R&B
group Tony! Toni! Toné!
, released May 8, 1990, on Wing Records
. It was produced and arranged primarily by the group, with additional production by Foster & McElroy
. With the exception of its new jack swing
-styled hit single "Feels Good
", the album's music references the funk music
of the group's native San Francisco Bay Area
, as well as dance-oriented tracks and smooth R&B ballads.
Upon its release, The Revival was well-received by music critic
s, who commended the group's songwriting and musical style. The album charted for 64 weeks on the US Billboard Top Pop Albums
, peaking at number 34. It produced four singles that attained Billboard
chart success, including the US top 40-hit "It Never Rains (In Southern California)
" and the gold
-shipping "Feels Good". On January 28, 1991, The Revival was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA), for shipments of one million copies in the United States. By 1992, it had sold two million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan
.
Chicago Tribune
writer Greg Kot
gave the album three out of four stars and stated "Although this album is loaded with raps, samples and mechanized rhythm tracks, it`s also drenched in Sly Stone
, Ray Charles
, doo-wop
and Motown
influences. Add a dash of loopy humor and you have a terrific '60s-meets-the-' 90s recipe". Greg Sandow
of Entertainment Weekly
commended the group for "build[ing] momentum by adding new elements as the songs proceed" and wrote of their relevance to R&B
, "it's artists such as Tony! Toni! Toné! who are setting the course for whatever future the genre is likely to have". Despite finding some songs "too busy and intentionally oddball", Los Angeles Times
writer Dennis Hunt complimented the group's "offbeat R&B hybrids" and stated "the Tonys' explorations [...] are mostly successful".
Orlando Sentinel
writer Parry Gettelman gave the album four out of four stars and complimented its "smooth ballads", while noting that its dance-oriented tracks "have great grooves and a warmth, humor and vocal finesse sadly lacking in the Top 40". In his consumer guide for The Village Voice
, critic Robert Christgau
gave The Revival an honorable mention rating, indicating "[a] likable effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well enjoy". Christgau cited "Feels Good" and "Oakland Stroke" as highlights and quipped "who says a love band can't play funk music
?". Janine McAdams of Spin
commended their songwriting for "transform[ing] the simplest ditties into jammin' anthems that assault the ear and move the feet" and wrote of its musical significance:
's Scott Wilson dubbed The Revival "the breakthrough album that offered a huge string of hits, and assured them their place in the musical hierarchy", adding that "Many of these [songs] are instantly recognizable now and the overall quality is great with solid songwriting and self-production". Allmusic editor Alex Henderson gave the album four-and-a-half out of five stars and praised its "organic and soulful" sound. He wrote of the group, "Tony! Toni! Toné! managed to appeal to urban contemporary
audiences while expressing a love of 1970s soul
and funk", adding that "Many of the urban contemporary releases of 1990 were gutless and homogenized, but The Revival is an album that had artistic integrity as well as commercial appeal".
Despite noting a weaker second-half, The New Rolling Stone Album Guide states "The Revival avoids history and humor for improved songwriting and production on dance tracks such as 'Feels Good' and love ballads such as 'Whatever You Want' [...] proves the group's lyrical cleverness is matched by its musical talent". While noting the new jack swing
style of its hit single "Feels Good", Sam Chennault of Rhapsody
wrote that "the rest of the album does give a nod to classic Bay Area funk and hints at the subsequent innovations of key member Raphael Saadiq
".
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 R&B
Contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B is a music genre that combines elements of hip hop, soul, R&B and funk.Although the abbreviation “R&B” originates from traditional rhythm and blues music, today the term R&B is most often used to describe a style of African American music originating after the demise of disco in...
group Tony! Toni! Toné!
Tony! Toni! Toné!
Tony! Toni! Toné! is an American Soul/R&B group from Oakland, California, popular during the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s. During the band's heyday, it was composed of D'wayne Wiggins on lead vocals and guitar, his brother Raphael Saadiq on lead vocals and bass, and their cousin Timothy...
, released May 8, 1990, on Wing Records
Wing Records
Wing Records was a record label subsidiary of Mercury Records, founded in 1955, that enjoyed its greatest success during the late 50s. In 1986, the label was revived by Mercury's parent company PolyGram and, just before its final fade, the label enjoyed a brief success with then new R&B singers...
. It was produced and arranged primarily by the group, with additional production by Foster & McElroy
Foster & McElroy
Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy are an R&B record production and songwriting duo which has produced and written hit singles for acts such as Club Nouveau, Tony! Toni! Toné!, Alexander O'neal, Regina Bell, Madonna, Swingout Sister, to name a few, and most notably, En Vogue,. In addition, they have...
. With the exception of its new jack swing
New jack swing
New jack swing or swingbeat is a fusion genre spearheaded by Teddy Riley and Bernard Belle which became extremely popular from the late-1980s into the mid-1990s. Its influence, along with hip-hop, seeped into pop culture and was the definitive sound of the inventive Black New York club scene...
-styled hit single "Feels Good
Feels Good
"Feels Good" is the title of a number-one R&B single by Tony! Toni! Toné!. The hit song spent two weeks at number one on the US R&B chart. It was also their first top-ten hit on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number nine...
", the album's music references the funk music
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
of the group's native San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
, as well as dance-oriented tracks and smooth R&B ballads.
Upon its release, The Revival was well-received by music critic
Music criticism
See also Music journalism for reporting on classical and popular music in the media.The Oxford Companion to Music defines music criticism as 'the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres'. In this...
s, who commended the group's songwriting and musical style. The album charted for 64 weeks on the US Billboard Top Pop Albums
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...
, peaking at number 34. It produced four singles that attained Billboard
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
chart success, including the US top 40-hit "It Never Rains (In Southern California)
It Never Rains (In Southern California)
"It Never Rains " is a 1990 song recorded by the American R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné!. This song peaked at Number One on the Billboard Hot R&B Songs charts in 1990 for two weeks, and thirty-four on the Billboard Hot 100. The song is mention in Jayceon Terrell Taylor's song Game's Pain...
" and the gold
RIAA certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...
-shipping "Feels Good". On January 28, 1991, The Revival was certified platinum 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), for shipments of one million copies in the United States. By 1992, it had sold two million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan is an information and sales tracking system created by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett. Soundscan is the official method of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada...
.
Critical response
Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
writer Greg Kot
Greg Kot
Greg Kot is an American writer and journalist. Since 1990, Kot has been the music critic at the Chicago Tribune, where he has covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and business issues...
gave the album three out of four stars and stated "Although this album is loaded with raps, samples and mechanized rhythm tracks, it`s also drenched in Sly Stone
Sly Stone
Sly Stone is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, most famous for his role as frontman for Sly & the Family Stone, a band which played a critical role in the development of soul, funk and psychedelia in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of...
, Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
, doo-wop
Doo-wop
The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...
and Motown
Motown Records
Motown is a record label originally founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation in Detroit, Michigan, United States, on April 14, 1960. The name, a portmanteau of motor and town, is also a nickname for Detroit...
influences. Add a dash of loopy humor and you have a terrific '60s-meets-the-' 90s recipe". Greg Sandow
Greg Sandow
Greg Sandow is an American music critic and composer. He is a graduate of Harvard University, with a bachelor's degree in government, and of Yale University, with a master's degree in composition....
of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
commended the group for "build[ing] momentum by adding new elements as the songs proceed" and wrote of their relevance to R&B
Contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B is a music genre that combines elements of hip hop, soul, R&B and funk.Although the abbreviation “R&B” originates from traditional rhythm and blues music, today the term R&B is most often used to describe a style of African American music originating after the demise of disco in...
, "it's artists such as Tony! Toni! Toné! who are setting the course for whatever future the genre is likely to have". Despite finding some songs "too busy and intentionally oddball", Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
writer Dennis Hunt complimented the group's "offbeat R&B hybrids" and stated "the Tonys' explorations [...] are mostly successful".
Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
The Orlando Sentinel is the primary newspaper of the Orlando, Florida region. It was founded in 1876. The Sentinel is owned by Tribune Company and is overseen by the Chicago Tribune. As of 2005, the Sentinel’s president and publisher was Kathleen Waltz; she announced her resignation in February 2008...
writer Parry Gettelman gave the album four out of four stars and complimented its "smooth ballads", while noting that its dance-oriented tracks "have great grooves and a warmth, humor and vocal finesse sadly lacking in the Top 40". In his consumer guide for The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, critic 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...
gave The Revival an honorable mention rating, indicating "[a] likable effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well enjoy". Christgau cited "Feels Good" and "Oakland Stroke" as highlights and quipped "who says a love band can't play funk music
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
?". Janine McAdams of Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
commended their songwriting for "transform[ing] the simplest ditties into jammin' anthems that assault the ear and move the feet" and wrote of its musical significance:
Retrospect
In a retrospective review, Yahoo! MusicYahoo! Music
Yahoo! Music, owned by Yahoo!, is the provider of a variety of music services, including Internet radio, music videos, news, artist information, and original programming...
's Scott Wilson dubbed The Revival "the breakthrough album that offered a huge string of hits, and assured them their place in the musical hierarchy", adding that "Many of these [songs] are instantly recognizable now and the overall quality is great with solid songwriting and self-production". Allmusic editor Alex Henderson gave the album four-and-a-half out of five stars and praised its "organic and soulful" sound. He wrote of the group, "Tony! Toni! Toné! managed to appeal to urban contemporary
Urban contemporary
Urban contemporary is a music radio format. The term was coined by the late New York DJ Frankie Crocker in the mid 1970s. Urban contemporary radio stations feature a playlist made up entirely of hip hop/rap, contemporary R&B, pop, electronica such as dubstep and drum and bass and Caribbean music...
audiences while expressing a love of 1970s soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
and funk", adding that "Many of the urban contemporary releases of 1990 were gutless and homogenized, but The Revival is an album that had artistic integrity as well as commercial appeal".
Despite noting a weaker second-half, The New Rolling Stone Album Guide states "The Revival avoids history and humor for improved songwriting and production on dance tracks such as 'Feels Good' and love ballads such as 'Whatever You Want' [...] proves the group's lyrical cleverness is matched by its musical talent". While noting the new jack swing
New jack swing
New jack swing or swingbeat is a fusion genre spearheaded by Teddy Riley and Bernard Belle which became extremely popular from the late-1980s into the mid-1990s. Its influence, along with hip-hop, seeped into pop culture and was the definitive sound of the inventive Black New York club scene...
style of its hit single "Feels Good", Sam Chennault of Rhapsody
Rhapsody (online music service)
Rhapsody is an online music store subscription service, launched in December 2001, and available in the United States only. On April 6, 2010, Rhapsody officially declared its independence from RealNetworks. Downloaded files come with restrictions on their use, enforced by Helix, Rhapsody's version...
wrote that "the rest of the album does give a nod to classic Bay Area funk and hints at the subsequent innovations of key member Raphael Saadiq
Raphael Saadiq
Raphael Saadiq is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. Saadiq has been a standard bearer for "old school" R&B since his early days as a member of the multiplatinum group Tony! Toni! Toné! He also produced songs of such artists as TLC, Joss Stone, D'Angelo, Mary J...
".
Track listing
Personnel
Credits for The Revival adapted from Allmusic.- Elijah Baker – musician
- Erich Baker – rhythm guitar
- Gerry Brown – engineer, mixing
- Joe Capers – engineer
- Tim Christian – musician
- Keith Crouch – synthesizer, bass
- Ed Eckstine – executive producer
- Dale Everingham – engineer
- Denzil Foster – arranger, producer
- Arne Frager – engineer
- Jim Gardiner – engineer
- Antron Haile – musician
- Fred Howard – engineer
- Ken Kessie – engineer, mixing
- Kelle Kutsugeras – creative director
- LA B Company – artwork, design
- L.A. Jae – turntables
- Dean Landew – composer
- Bonnie Lewis – photography
- Bill Malina – engineer
- Thomas McElroy – arranger, producer
- Jeff Poe – engineer
- Herb Powers – mastering
- Tony! Toni! Toné! – arranger, producer, vocals
- Rob Von Arx – post production
- Carl Wheeler – musician
- D'Wayne Wiggins – musician
- Raphael Wiggins – musician
- Vanessa Williams – performer, vibraphone, vocals
- Toby Wright – engineer
Album
| Chart (1990) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| US Billboard Top Pop Albums 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... |
34 |
| US Billboard Top Black 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... |
4 |
Singles
| Year | Song | Chart | Peak position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | "The Blues" | US Billboard Hot 100 | 46 |
| US Billboard Hot Black Singles Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues. Dominated over the years at various times by jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, soul,... |
1 | ||
| US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play | 43 | ||
| "Oakland Stroke" | UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
50 | |
| "Feels Good" | US Billboard Hot 100 | 9 | |
| US Billboard Hot Black Singles | 1 | ||
| "It Never Rains (In Southern California)" | US Billboard Hot R&B Singles | 1 | |
| 1991 | UK Singles Chart | 69 | |
| US Billboard Hot 100 | 34 | ||
| "Whatever You Want" | US Billboard Hot 100 | 48 | |
| US Billboard Hot R&B Singles | 1 |
External links
- The Revival at DiscogsDiscogsDiscogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...