That’s My Jam: Method Man – I’ll Be There For You/You’re All I Need To Get By

That’s My Jam is a weekly feature where one person from the Selective Hearing staff goes to wax poetic about music that is pivotal to their musical tastes. Whether that would be an album, a song, or anything in-between. We all had to start somewhere.

Method Man I'll Be There For You You're All I Need To Get By

Release Date: May 2, 1995

Track Listing

  1. I’ll Be There For You/You’re All I Need To Get By (Puff Daddy Remix) feat. Mary J. Blige
  2. I’ll Be There For You/You’re All I Need To Get By (Puff Daddy Remix Instrumental)
  3. I’ll Be There For You/You’re All I Need To Get By (Razor Sharp Mix) feat. Mary J. Blige
  4. I’ll Be There For You/You’re All I Need To Get By (Razor Sharp Mix Instrumental)
  5. What The Blood Clot (LP Version)

Review

This Grammy award-winning duet is a mix of Method Man’s All I Need (from 1994’s Tical) and the Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell duet You’re All I Need To Get By with Mary J. Blige singing the chorus and backing vocals.

Packaged with two different versions, there is the Hip-Pop flavoured Puff Daddy remix sampling The Notorious B.I.G.’s Me & My Bitch and the grittier sounding Razor Sharp Mix produced by the RZA.

I’m sure many of you have heard Hip-Hop love songs before but they were all kind of sappy. With I’ll Be There For You/You’re All I Need To Get By a new type of love song was born. Thug Love.

Thug Love takes the love song away from the bedroom and puts it firmly in the streets with a combination of swagger and soul. Who would have expected a Wu-Tang clan member to come out of the box with this?

But hey, it broke the monotony of the typical collaboration between MCs and R&B singers and (along with Biggie’s One More Chance Remix) ushered in an era of new musical possibilities.

Unfortunately, the sub-genre of Thug Love Hip-Hop has been watered since the many moons that Method Man & Mary J’s collaboration was released and is a shell of what it once was.

But if you long for the days of yore or just want some damn fine Hip-Hop, look no further than this song. Just skip the ending track on this single; it’s not worth your time.

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Greg is the creator, administrator, editor, code monkey, overlord and general jack of all trades at Selective Hearing. He can be found lurking among the overseas Asian pop fandom and bumming around Japan every year for some reason or another.