Steve Huey of AllMusic rated Force of Nature three out of five stars. The album debuted atop the US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and debuted at number seven on the US Billboard 200.Ĭritical reception Professional ratings Review scores It was released on Maby Blackground Records. “I thought it was a cool record they thought it was a great record: ‘Let’s make sure we have another thing in this space,’ ” Tank says.Force of Nature is the debut studio album by American R&B recording artist Tank. The label’s initial resistance to “Maybe I Deserve” naturally melted once it became a hit, and Tank’s sophomore album was led by “One Man,” another piano-driven ballad with shades of mid-Nineties Brian McKnight (especially the irresistible hit “Anytime”). “They say to me, ‘Tank, you’re not a proven producer, right? We’re gonna take this song, give it to proven producers, have them beef it up, make it a hit record.’ ” But none of those reworks were as stirring as the original, so the single was released as-is - written, produced, and sung solely by Tank. Then the label decided to bring in outsiders to redo the track. But the song’s success was never assured - Tank says his label didn’t trust the initial version of the track, so he almost sold it to Dave Hollister from the group Blackstreet. “Maybe I Deserve” set the template for those earlier years. “I go back - and there’s music to prove it.” “All the people who talk like, ‘Y’all should’ve heard this song, this album,’ they mostly couldn’t reference it, couldn’t find the complete experience,” Tank adds.Īnd the sweet? “Now people will know I was an artist that existed before 2010,” Tank says. “It’s bitter because I’ve missed out on 10 years’ worth of revenue, 10 years’ worth of discovery.” When he scored one of the biggest hits of his career, the platinum-certified “When We,” a few years ago, this could’ve driven new fans back to his older work - except that the material effectively didn’t exist in an easily accessible form. In August, Blackground announced that it would re-release 17 albums to streaming services, CD, and vinyl across a two-month period. Like the rest of the catalog owned by the label Blackground Records - including albums by Aaliyah, Toni Braxton, and Jojo, among others - this music was withheld from streaming services until recently, demonstrating how little control even famous musicians often have over the fate of their creations. That changes Friday, when Tank’s first album, 2001’s Force of Nature, and its two follow-ups, 2002’s One Man and 2007’s Sex, Love & Pain, finally become accessible to the streaming masses. But it’s never been available on streaming services. The track cracked the Top 20 on the Hot 100 and remains the singer’s highest-charting hit. “That took me from shows with 150 people showing up to nearly 3,000 people showing up in six months,” Tank says. Listeners could apparently relate: The song became a breakout hit. “Maybe I deserve/For you to stay out with him all night.” In R&B, it’s customary for the singer’s conviction to grow as the song progresses, so Tank’s imagery becomes increasingly vivid, but here, all his firepower is directed inward - by the end of the track, he’s practically begging his partner to lie to him, cheat on him, put him through hell, just to even the score and alleviate his guilt. This track is a triumph of self-torture: “Maybe I deserve/For you to go out and find some other guy,” Tank sings. Tank returned the next year with “Maybe I Deserve,” a single as durable as it is minimal - just a few scattered, gospel-leaning piano notes and a dusting of drums. The song just wasn’t that good, and I didn’t know it.” To make matters worse, radio execs kept seeing Tank’s posters - “the word ‘freaky,’ me with my shirt off, looking mean” - and deciding he was a rapper, putting him in an awkward position when he showed up at the stations’ shows ready to croon.īut a hit has a way of erasing all that came before it. “That’s the record I want people to forget and act like it never existed. “‘Freaky’ was almost the beginning of the end,” he says. It was a start, just not the one he hoped for. Next came the visual: “We spent like $500,000 shooting an elaborate video, blowing shit up, setting shit on fire, 10 dancers, crane shots, racing old vintage vehicles,” the singer recalls. He spent months and months writing songs he lined up a single called “Freaky,” which he released in 2000. After a 60-date arena tour as a backup vocalist for Ginuwine and Aaliyah in 1997, Durrell Babbs, the singer now known to R&B fans as Tank, was ready to venture out as a solo act. But in the 1990s, building that type of name recognition often took years. Today an unknown artist can post a snippet of a song on TikTok on a Friday and be famous 48 hours later.
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