"You Make Me Feel Brand New" is a 1974 single by the Philadelphia soul group The Stylistics. An R&B ballad, the song was written by Thom Bell and Linda Creed.

Background and composition

According to a Thom Bell interview for Record Collector : "'When Creed broke one of their golden songwriting rules by mentioning religion (“God bless you”) in You Make Me Feel Brand New, Bell tore a strip off her. He then felt like a heel when she told him that she had written the song about him, and the lyric stayed intact.'"Stylistics co-founder, baritone Airrion Love opens the song, then alternates with the falsetto of lead vocalist Russell Thompkins Jr. The song, in a longer five-minute version, had first appeared as a track on the Stylistics' 1973 album, Rockin' Roll Baby, though that version was not released as a single.

Chart performance

"You Make Me Feel Brand New" was the fifth track from their 1974 album, Let's Put It All Together and was released as a single and reached No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks, barred from the No. 1 spot by "Billy Don't Be a Hero" by Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods. In addition, it climbed to No. 5 on the Billboard R&B chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 14 song for 1974. "You Make Me Feel Brand New" also reached No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart in August 1974. The Stylistics' recording sold over one million copies in the US, earning the band a gold disc The award was presented by the RIAA on May 22, 1974. It was the band's fifth gold disc.

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Influence

Neil Sedaka used the song as inspiration to compose the melody of "The Hungry Years", noting that it contained a three-semitone key change that he found particularly appealing and called a "drop-dead chord."

Other versions

"You Make Me Feel Brand New" has been recorded by jazz and pop artists including:

Samples

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