Boyz II Men couldn’t or wouldn’t do that. Boyz II Men’s onetime duet partner Mariah Carey adapted to those changes, switching her style up to meet the moment. The brutish flash of Puff Daddy and his Bad Boy production squad had an effect on R&B, and the spaced-out futurism of Timbaland - and of all the producers who started trying to sound like Timbaland - warped and mutated the genre, too. Its proximity to rap had made R&B tougher and more streamlined. But by the late ’90s, other sounds had started to come into R&B. For a few years, that style made Boyz II Men unstoppable. In a certain sense, Boyz II Men were throwbacks even when they arrived - good-natured balladeers who rode in on new jack swing but who found their greatest success by evoking the sad splendor of ’70s Philly soul. Instead, when their time came, Boyz II Men made a quiet and dignified exit from the winners’ circle, and they did it with a perfectly unmemorable trifle of a song. But Boyz II Men never really had to deal with a full-on public backlash like the one that overwhelmed their onetime chart peers and future nostalgia-circuit tourmates New Kids On The Block. The world had plenty of time to get sick of Boyz II Men during the group’s imperial era. They must’ve known that something was ending. It must’ve been weird for Boyz II Men when the lead single from 1997’s Evolution, their third album, only held that #1 spot for a week. “ End Of The Road,” “ I’ll Make Love To You,” and the Mariah Carey collaboration “ One Sweet Day” all temporarily held the record for the longest-reigning #1 hit of all time. The quartet had a wild habit of breaking chart records with those singles. Boyz II Men did that with just five #1 hits. Between 19, Boyz II Men spent a grand total of 50 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 - two weeks shy of an entire year and nine weeks short of the Beatles’ all-time total. It’s so hard to say goodbye, but that’s what we’re doing today.

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.

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