BIIM certainly knew their way around a mopey ballad. “Doin’ Just Fine” is probably their best (depending on how overplayed I feel “End of the Road” is on any given day). I was going through my first real breakup when this song was released, so it holds a very special “sad song” space in my heart. However, there are other songs that held a similar space in my heart that I don’t like nearly as much anymore (like “How Do I Live” by LeAnn Rimes…god damn, I was melodramatic), so “Doin’ Just Fine” would get a high rating even if it weren’t for the specific part of my life it scored).

As whiny as Wanya Morris is (and no male R&B singer brought the weepies like he did in his heyday), his vocal performance in “Doin’ Just Fine”’s bridge turns the song into a tour de force. My man was feeling those lyrics. And if those lyrics do appear to owe a debt to a certain #1 single from 1984, Wanya makes it clear when he literally sings “I ain’t missing you at all” to close the bridge. Although John Waite wouldn’t have turned the word “all” into a twelve-syllable testimony.