New Jack Swing: Top 50 Songs

New Jack Swing: Top 50 Songs

New Jack Swing is a sub-genre of R&B generally traced back to Janet Jackson’s Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis-produced Control album in 1986 and running into the ‘90s. It used some of the sampling, rhythm, and production techniques of hip-hop. Other significant producers included Babyface & L.A. Reid, Teddy Riley (who also fronted Guy and Blackstreet), and Bernard Belle. New Edition were one of the genre’s significant acts as well as former members Bobby Brown, Johnny Gill, and Ralph Tresvant, as well as offshoot group Bell Biv DeVoe. 1991’s Dangerous album by Michael Jackson, and produced by Jackson and Riley, is the genre’s best-selling album with 30 million. So how was this list created? As with any genre lists at Dave’s Music Database, this is an aggregate based on other sources. In this case, a dozen lists of the top new jack swing songs of all time were compiled. In response to some of the comments left on this page, you may not think a particular song falls into this genre, but enough people on the aggregated lists did think so. Click here to see other genre-specific song lists. 1. Bobby Brown “My Prerogative” (1988) 2. Boyz II Men “Motownphilly” (1991) 3. Tony! Toni! Toné! “Feels Good” (1990) 4. Bell Biv DeVoe “Poison” (1990) 5. Keith Sweat “I Want Her” (1987) 6. Johnny Kemp “Just Got Paid” (1988) 7. Johnny Gill “Rub You the Right Way” (1990) 8. Michael Jackson “Remember the Time” (1992) 9. Guy “Groove Me” (1988) 10. Color Me Badd “I Wanna Sex You Up” (1991) 11. Joe Public “Live and Learn” (1992) 12. Janet Jackson “Miss You Much” (1989) 13. Bobby Brown “Don’t Be Cruel” (1987) 14. Guy “Teddy’s Jam” (1988) 15. New Edition “If It Isn’t Love” (1988) 16. Jade “Don’t Wallk Away” (1992) 17. Christopher Williams “I’m Dreamin’” (1991) 18. Al B. Sure! “Nite and Day” (1988) 19. Bobby Brown “Every Little Step” (1989) 20. En Vogue “Hold On” (1990) 21. SWV (Sisters with Voices) “Weak” (1993) 22. Hi-Five “I Like the Way (The Kissing Game)” (1991) 23. Wreckx-N-Effect “New Jack Swing” (1989) 24. TLC “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg” (1992) 25. TLC “What About Your Friends” (1992) 26. Public Announcement “She’s Got That Vibe” (1992) 27. Portrait “Here We Go Again’ (1992) 28. Karyn White “The Way You Love Me” (1988) 29. Ralph Tresvant “Sensitivity” (1990) 30. Troop “Spread My Wings” (1989) 31. Montell Jordan “This Is How We Do It” (1995) 32. Teddy Riley with Tammy Lucas “Is It Good to You” (1992) 33. Tony! Toni! Toné! “If I Had No Loot” (1993) 34. Hi-Five “She’s Playing Hard to Get” (1992) 35. Whitney Houston “I’m Your Baby Tonight” (1990) 36. Bell Biv DeVoe “Do Me!” (1990) 37. Shanice “I Love Your Smile” (1991) 38. Soul II Soul “Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)” (1989) 39. Timex Social Club “Rumours” (1986) 40. En Vogue “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” (1992) 41. LL Cool J “Around the Way Girl” (1990) 42. Club Nouveau “Lean on Me” (1987) 43. Heavy D & the Boyz “Now That We Found Love” (1991) 44. Janet Jackson “Love Will Never Do Witthout You” (1989) 45. Janet Jackson “Nasty” (1986) 46. Paula Abdul “Straight Up” (1988) 47. Another Bad Creation “Iesha” (1990) 48. Jodeci “Come and Talk to Me” (1991) 49. Janet Jackson “Rhythm Nationa” (1989) 50. Bobby Brown “On Our Own” (1989) Resources/Related Links: Dave’s Music Database: “Other Genre/Category Song Lists” First posted 5/16/2020; last revised 9/4/2023.

Blackstreet “No Diggity” hit #1

No Diggity Blackstreet with Dr. Dre & Queen Pen

Writer(s): Teddy Riley, Chauncey Hannibal, Lynise Walters, William Stewart, Dr. Dre (see lyrics here) Released: July 29, 1996 First Charted: October 12, 1996 Peak: 14 US, 11 CB, 13 GR, 12 RR, 14 RB, 9 UK, 2 CN, 21 AU (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.6 US, 1.8 UK, 3.44 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 342.66 video, 669.85 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Teddy Riley became “one of the greatest producers in pop history” SG and the “originator of the new jack swing sound,” FB “a streetwise brand of R&B.” TB He produced blockbuster albums for Bobby Brown (Don’t Be Cruel) and Michael Jackson (Dangerous) and rap classics “The Show” by Doug E. Fresh and “Rump Shaker” by Wreckx-N-Effect. He “injected R&B with rap swagger and dance-music intensity.” SG He’d also been with the group Guy in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but started a new R&B group Blackstreet in 1991. He said, “I wanted to do something like Boyz II men but with a different sound, different style, different image.” FB Their self-titled 1994 debut went platinum and set up the group for even greater success on their sophomore effort, Another Level. That album hit #3 and was certified four-times platinum. The first album generated a top-ten hit in “Before I Let You Go,” but the second album did even better with the chart-topping “No Diggity.” The phrase came out of a unreleased remix of “I Like the Way You Work” from the first album. LL Cool J rapped on the track, using the line “no diggity” to mean “no doubt.” SG The song was built on a sample of “Grandma’s Hands” by Bill Withers. Riley and co-producer William “Skylz” Stewart looped the song’s “soft and thoughtful humming-to-himself moment.” SG Withers wrote the song about his grandma, but Riley “turned it into a song about an extremely sexy woman.” SG “Blackstreet performed ‘No Diggity’ with all the swagger of street rappers” TB but it did also feature actual rapping. Riley brought in Lynise Walters, a rapper from Brooklyn known as Queen Pen who sounded a lot like Lil’ Kim. SG “She’s got a ton of presence, and she really attacks the beat, bringing equal measures of strut and style.” SG Even bigger, though, is Dr. Dre, “the former N.W.A. producer and occasional rapper, [who] figured out how to make a street-rap blockbuster.” SG When Dre first heard the song, he told Riley he wanted to be in the video. Riley agreed, but only if Dr would rap on the song. His “verse isn’t exactly masterful, but it sounds cool as hell anyway.” SG Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Blackstreet DMDB encyclopedia entry for Dr. Dre FB Fred Bronson (2007). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (4th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 850. SG Stereogum (4/25/2022). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 272. WK Wikipedia First posted 6/26/2023.

Michael Jackson debuted at #1 with Dangerous

First posted 3/21/2008; updated 12/1/2020.

Dangerous Michael Jackson

Released: November 26, 1991 Charted: December 14, 1991 Peak: 14 US, 112 RB, 11 UK, 3 CN, 16 AU Sales (in millions): 8.0 US, 1.98 UK, 32.0 world (includes US and UK) Genre: pop/R&B

Tracks: Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Jam (7/11/92, 21a US, 13 UK, 3 RB) Why You Wanna Trip on Me In the Closet (4/25/92, 5a US, 8 UK, 1 RB, sales: ½ million) She Drives Me Wild Remember the Time (1/25/92, 1a US, 3 UK, 1a RB, 15 AC, sales: ½ million) Can’t Let Her Get Away Heal the World (12/5/92, 24a US, 2 UK, 62 RB, 9 AC) Black or White (11/23/91, 1 US, 1 UK, 3 RB, 23 AC, sales: 1 million) Who Is It? (7/25/92, 14 US, 10 UK, 6 RB) Give in to Me (2/27/93, 2 UK) Will You Be There? (7/10/93, 6a US, 9 UK, 53 RB, 5 AC, sales: ½ million) Keep the Faith Gone Too Soon (12/18/93, 33 UK) Dangerous Total Running Time: 77:10

Rating: 4.012 out of 5.00 (average of 25 ratings) Quotable: -- Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: “Despite the success of Bad, it was hard not to view it as a bit of a letdown, since it presented a cleaner, colder, calculated version of Thriller – something that delivered what it should on the surface, but wound up offering less in the long run. So, it was time for a change-up, something even a superstar as huge as Michael Jackson realized, so he left Quincy Jones behind, hired Guy mastermind Teddy Riley as the main producer, and worked with a variety of other producers, arrangers, and writers, most notably Bruce Swedien and Bill Bottrell.” STE “Michael Jackson was still going for pop hits with 1991’s Dangerous,” RW but “the end result of this is a much sharper, harder, riskier album than Bad, one that has its eyes on the street, even if its heart gets middle-class soft on Heal the World. The shift in direction and change of collaborators has liberated Jackson, and he’s written a set of songs that is considerably stronger than Bad, often approaching the consistency of Off the Wall and Thriller.” STE In fact, the “six straight Teddy Riley-assisted cuts” RW that front-load the album make for a “ half-hour swoop of tense, aggressive, often angular funk [that] was Jackson’s most interesting music since Thriller.” RW There is the challenge of Jackson’s “suffocating stardom, which results in a set of songs without much real emotional center, either in their substance or performance.” STE “But, there’s a lot to be said for professional craftsmanship at its peak, and Dangerous has plenty of that, not just on such fine singles as In the Closet, Remember the Time, or the blistering Jam, but on album tracks like Why You Wanna Trip on Me.” STE “The sprightly Black or White is explicitly pro-interracial romance, an angle its video didn’t go near, and the urgent Give in to Me is almost scary…good.” RW “Gone Too Soon, a non-Jackson composition about teen AIDS casualty Ryan White, is a quiet statement (particularly played next to the choir-laden ‘Heal the World,’ Keep the Faith, and Will You Be There) showing that the star doesn’t always have to get showy.” RW The album isn’t “perfect – it has a terrible cover, a couple of slow spots, and suffers from CD-era ailments of the early ‘90s, such as its overly long running time and its deadening Q Sound production, which sounds like somebody forgot to take the Surround Sound button off.” STE “Even so, Dangerous captures Jackson at a near-peak, delivering an album that would have ruled the pop charts surely and smoothly if it had arrived just a year earlier. But it didn’t – it arrived along with grunge, which changed the rules of the game nearly as much as Thriller itself. Consequently, it’s the rare multi-platinum, number one album that qualifies as a nearly forgotten, underappreciated record.” STE

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Michael Jackson STE Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide RW Rickey Wright, Amazon.com essential recording