On August 20, 1997, Boyz II Men held a press conference to talk about their non-Christmas, non-Spanish, and non-remix album, Evolution. They were of course under tons of pressure with the last two albums selling almost 30 million copies worldwide together. With Evolution, they worked with the regular characters, themselves, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, and Babyface. But, the two choices that basically ruined Evolution were Puffy Daddy and his crew, and Keith Crouch (who actually wrote great songs for Brandy on her first album). Promoting for Evolution was non-stop. They appeared on basically every talk show known including The Rosie O'Donnell show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Vibe Show, The Keenen Ivory Wayans Show, MTV Live, and more.
Tuesday, September 23, 1997, Evolution was released. At midnight, that night, they signed copies of Evolution at the Virgin Megastore in New York City. Evolution ended up selling about 215,000 copies its first week out due to Boyz II Men's popularity. The album of course debuted at #1 on both the R&B Album Charts and the Pop Album Charts. But, soon after that, the album was out of the top 10, and it never even got back into the top 20. Overall, Evolution only ended up selling two million copies in the United States and two million copies overseas. It was the biggest failure of Boyz II Men's career. The failure has to do with many things, two words: Motown/PolyGram. Motown Records was going through presidents when Evolution was released, so no one there promoted it after September. Only two singles were released from the album in the United States, the other two were only released over seas. This bad treatment from Motown could be because of the entire The Remix Collection war two years earlier. More bad treatment came from the critics calling the album "their worst ever," "they lost the magic," and that "the Boyz grew 'old' ungracefully." The most common thing the critics said though was it's the same music, so how did they "evolve?" I do agree with the critics that the title really doesn't have to do with the music on the album, but they themselves actually evolved, not the music, whatsoever. Hopefully, the Boyz learned from Evolution, and will not make an album like Evolution again, we can only hope. The next following paragraphs are all about what fun Boyz II Men had with Evolution.
The first single released was only released a few weeks before Evolution was released, one of the first bad decisions made by Motown. The song was "4 Seasons of Loneliness." The video was very different compared to their previous videos. It was shot by Paul Hunter, a very cool director. More computer graphics were used than in any other previous Boyz II Men video. "4 Seasons of Loneliness" was Boyz II Men's highest debut on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles ever, if you don't count "One Sweet Day" debuting at #1. It debuted at #2, behind Mariah Carey's "Honey." The following week, it went to #1, but for only ONE week. That was because Elton John's tribute to Princess Diana came out the week "4 Seasons of Loneliness" went to #1, so that really wasn't fair. :-( That was one indication that this album was not going to break any records they had held previously. The single did end up going platinum, Boyz II Men's sixth platinum single. A few months after "4 Seasons of Loneliness" ran it's course "A Song for Mama" was released. Another mistake was made by Motown for even releasing this song as the second single because the song already appeared on the Soul Food Soundtrack. The video did not turn out too well either. The video was shot in England, when Boyz II Men were touring there. It was shot by Cameron Casey, someone they had never used before as a director. The single was the last United States single released by Motown, another bad decision. The single did do something that no other group had ever accomplished before. The song did pretty well on the charts, getting to #1 on the R&B Singles Chart, getting to #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the song went platinum. What that meant was that Boyz II Men had seven singles that went platinum, something no other group had ever done before. That record is still held almost two years after it was set.
In October of 1998, Boyz II Men went to Japan and Europe to promote Evolution. Before they left though, they signed a deal where they would be the spokesmen for Smoke-Free Campaign to get teens to stop or never start to smoke. For the press conference, Wanya was not there, he was sick. They unveiled a poster that had their pictures on it that said, "Smoke-Free, It's the New Evolution." What great marketing! Once they got to Japan, they made many different appearances on TV shows there. On one show, they even stood next to the Spice Girls and talked to them, something you will probably never see again. Also in Japan, they performed a few concerts, much like the All Around the World concerts. Then they also made appearances on European television shows. Then they got to Australia, where they had many fans. Before they got back to America, they performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert with Mariah Carey, Jewel, and more. Boyz II Men even lip-synched "One Sweet Day" with Mariah Carey, a tribute to Princess Diana. When they got back to America, they went to New Jersey, not Philadelphia, to serve turkeys to the homeless at a local shelter all for Thanksgiving.
In December of 1997, Boyz II Men were not honored by Philadelphia, but honored by their New Jersey. In Camden, New Jersey, the street that was formerly Broadway was re-named to Boyz II Men Boulevard. It was only re-named in 1998 though, in 1999 it was once again Broadway. 1997 was now about to end, and the Evolution World Tour would be kicking off soon. 1998 would promise to be a 1996-type year where Boyz II Men were hardly seen after April.