One-hit wonders have more hits than 99.9 percent of us.
Those with multiple hits or even a No. 1 single? Even rarer.
Having three songs that each spent 10 or more weeks at the top of the Billboard charts? That’s a triple-double that only one group can claim, and that group will be in town Sunday to perform at the Blaisdell Arena.
Boyz II Men — currently Shawn Stockman, Nathan Morris and Wanya Morris (the two are not related) — formed 30 years ago in Philadelphia, as a quartet (since reduced to a trio, as a result of bass-voiced Michael McCary’s health issues).
BOYZ II MEN
>> Where: Blaisdell Arena
>> When: 6 p.m. Sunday
>> Cost: $34-$125
>> Info: 800-745-3000, ticketmaster.com
The group broke out in 1991 with the New Jack Swing of “Motownphilly,” which showed off the singers’ range of voices, ability to harmonize and a cappella skills. By 1994 they were pop radio kingpins, with three No. 1 singles on their resume.
They also matched a feat only Elvis Presley and the Beatles had achieved before them — knocking themselves off the top of the singles chart.
Boyz II Men rose on the wings of a sound they dubbed “doo-wop hip-hop,” but their biggest hits were ballads, each one topping the previous.
The break-up classic “End of the Road” set a record with 13 weeks at No. 1 in 1992.
“I’ll Make Love to You,” which transitioned the Boyz to adulthood, made it to the top for 14 weeks in 1994, matching the mark Whitney Houston set the year before with “I Will Always Love You.”
In 1996, their collaboration with Mariah Carey, the bittersweet “One Sweet Day,” set the standard at 16 weeks. That’s a record that stands 22 years later.
In a phone conversation last week, before he zipped off to soundcheck for the group’s show in St. Louis, Boyz II Men’s Nathan Morris reflected on that period.
“It was fun. We were doing music we loved to do,” Morris said. “People loved it. Just having a good time in our lives, being able to take care of our families.”
THE GROUP was at the forefront of an early-1990s R&B movement that also carried artists such as Toni Braxton, Brian McKnight, Tony! Toni! Toné! and the late Aaliyah to prominence. That led to the mainstreaming of hip-hop and, in the past 10 years or so, rap becoming the dominant force in music.
With that, traditional soul singers have taken a bit of a backseat, often relegated to providing hooks on hip-hop hits.
Morris doesn’t like the direction R&B has taken.
“Rap is different than it was years ago, and R&B is different,” he said. “The musicality of R&B is the part that’s missing, because most of the artists that do R&B today, they’re not musical by any means. They just happen to sing a couple notes and make a couple songs.”
Hawaii’s own Bruno Mars is one of the few old-style R&B artists thriving today, and he has cited Boyz II Men as one of his primary influences. The appreciation is mutual: Morris cited Mars as one of the current artists the group respects.
Morris met the Roosevelt High School graduate when the group visited him backstage at the iHeartRadio festival in Las Vegas in 2013. Mars immediately broke into a rendition of their chart-topper “On Bended Knee.”
“That was cool,” Morris said. “It’s great that (there are) artists like him — we like to call them ‘the good artists’ — today that are really into music and are very talented. Talent is very scarce today, so Bruno is one of those that we like a lot.”
Mars paid homage to Boyz II Men again recently by using one of their early hits — a remake of G.C. Cameron’s “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” — as the soundtrack to a video he posted commemorating the completion of the European leg of his 24K Magic Tour last year.
THIRTY YEARS after the band formed, taking its name from a New Edition song, seeing today’s artists such as Mars show love for Boyz II Men is special to the trio, affirmation that the music they made has a lasting influence.
“It doesn’t just live through the music that we’ve done,” Morris said, “but it lives through the music that a lot of other artists have done. It’s kind of an extension, which is beautiful.”
Two other artists who have expressed their respect for Boyz II Men are Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi and Canada’s Justin Bieber, who collaborated with Puerto Rican singer-rapper Daddy Yankee on “Despacito.” That hit nearly dethroned “One Sweet Day” last year as the longest-running No. 1 in chart history.
Morris acknowledges that the group was watching as the Spanish-language track crept toward 16 weeks, but insists they would have been OK with the song breaking the mark instead of tying it, as it did.
“Once it got close, we were checking it out,” Morris said. “Our thought is records are made to be broken. We’re happy that it wasn’t broken; but if it was, that’s what they’re made for.”
Fonsi visited the group backstage in April, after a show at the Mirage in Las Vegas, sharing a picture of himself with the Boyz on Facebook.
“These guys taught me how to blend and harmonize,” Fonsi said, in his Facebook post, “Brought back so many great memories hearing them kill it on stage last night.”
Boyz II Men’s legacy has carried on in the past decade through an explosion in the popularity of a cappella — from the “Pitch Perfect” films to groups such as Pentatonix and the show where that group got its start, “The Sing-Off,” for which Stockman was a judge. But Morris has mixed feelings about the boom.
“It’s sad because it’s more of a niche than a genre,” Morris said. “(But) it’s good to see that it’s still out there. A cappella is the true essence of what vocal music is about. You wanna know anything about vocals, that’s where it starts.”
Wanya Morris followed Stockman into reality TV as a contestant on “Dancing with the Stars,” finishing in fourth place, and Nathan Morris makes his own foray this year with the DIY Network show “Hit Properties,” in which he aims to turn an old country club estate into a dream home.
“I’ve been doing that kinda stuff for years,” Morris said. “Now that we have some time to settle down, I got a chance to do some things I like to do.”
Settling down must be relative. The group put out a new doo-wop album last year (“Under the Street Light”) and is doing about 100 shows this year — including an ongoing residency at the Mirage in Las Vegas.
There are no plans to stop anytime soon.
Boyz II Men will keep going as long as they have the desire, Morris said — and as long as there are still people out there, wanting to hear them perform.