What's On Tonight

Montell Jordan's "What's On Tonight": Following a Number One with a Signature Groove

When Montell Jordan released "What's On Tonight" in early 1997, he was working in the long shadow of one of the defining R&B hits of the mid-1990s. His debut single "This Is How We Do It," released in 1995, had reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent seven weeks at the top, becoming one of the year's most played records and establishing Jordan as a major commercial force in contemporary R&B. The challenge facing him by 1997 was the familiar one for artists who debut with a massive hit: how to build a sustainable career without simply chasing the same sound indefinitely.

"What's On Tonight" was released on Def Jam Recordings, the label that had signed Jordan and shepherded his debut album This Is How We Do It (1995) to major commercial success. The song appeared on his second studio album More (1996), which Def Jam released with significant promotional investment. The production team behind the track worked within the same smooth, late-night R&B framework that Jordan had explored on his debut, but with a more explicitly sensual and laid-back feel that reflected the album's overall orientation toward what was becoming known commercially as "bedroom R&B."

On the Billboard Hot 100, "What's On Tonight" entered at number 56 on February 15, 1997, and built its chart presence steadily over the following weeks. By March 1 it had climbed to number 33, and by March 8 to number 26. It reached its peak of number 21 on the chart dated April 5, 1997, spending a total of 20 weeks on the Hot 100. Twenty weeks on the chart was a strong performance that demonstrated Jordan's ability to generate sustained airplay and audience interest beyond the initial promotional push, even if the peak position was considerably lower than the heights his debut single had achieved.

The song performed particularly well on the R&B/Hip-Hop Singles and Tracks chart, where Jordan's core audience was concentrated and where the smooth, atmospheric production style he employed was a reliable format draw. Urban adult contemporary radio stations were programming this type of material extensively in 1997, and Jordan's voice, a warm and controlled baritone with a facility for sensual understatement, was ideally suited to the format.

Jordan himself was involved in the songwriting and creative direction of More, asserting more artistic ownership over the project than had been possible on a debut album assembled partly before his commercial breakthrough. The Los Angeles-based production environment in which much of the album was created connected him to a network of producers and collaborators who were shaping the sound of mainstream R&B in the mid-to-late 1990s, a period in which the genre was balancing the competing influences of new jack swing's legacy, the emerging sounds of hip-hop soul, and the smooth production aesthetics that were defining adult contemporary R&B radio.

The promotional video for "What's On Tonight" received rotation on BET and MTV's late-night R&B programming blocks, contributing to the single's sustained presence on the chart. Jordan's visual presence was an important commercial asset: tall, physically imposing, and capable of projecting both confidence and vulnerability in his performance style, he was a natural fit for the video-driven promotional environment of mid-1990s R&B.

The 1997 chart run of "What's On Tonight" sits within a broader pattern of Jordan's commercial career, which saw him produce a series of credible chart singles across multiple albums even as he was never quite able to replicate the lightning-strike success of "This Is How We Do It." That pattern, that of a major hitmaker building a respectable if less spectacular catalog career in the years following a breakthrough, is one of the most common narratives in pop music, and Jordan navigated it with professionalism and continued artistic development.