Subway’s Debut ‘Good Times’ Gets Expanded Digital Reissue
The group’s only LP spawned the hit ‘This Lil’ Game We Play.’
Chicago contemporary R&B group Subway’s first and only studio album, Good Times, has arrived on streaming for the first time.
First released in 1995, the album was a joint release between Motown and subsidiary Biv 10, led by New Edition and Bell Biv Devoe’s Michael Bivens. The R&B empresario first discovered Subway—made up of brothers Keith Thomas and Trerail Puckett, alongside close friends Eric McNeal and Roy Jones—in 1992, signing them that same year.
Upon its release, the record didn’t see major mainstream success, although it peaked at No. 4 on Billboard’s Top Heatseekers chart. But its lead single (and Subway’s chart debut) “This Lil’ Game We Play” became a bona-fide hit for both the band and the Motown-signed girl group it featured, 702. The track broke the Billboard Top 20, and remained on Billboard’s Hot R&B Singles charts for a steady 24 weeks beginning in December 1996. Gerald Levert, who collaborated with the likes of Keith Sweat and Johnny Gill in supergroup LSG, co-wrote the track with Edwin Nicholas. The song eventually earned an RIAA-gold certification.
Subway would never release another full length, and eventually disbanded in 1998. But first they found their way into a feature on the soundtrack to the 1996 comedy Kazaam, which starred Shaquille O’Neal as a genie who, after spending eons trapped in a lamp, considers a music career upon being conjured by a young boy. Subway’s contribution to the soundtrack, “”I’ll Make Your Dreams Come True,” peaked at #64 on Billboard’s Hot R&B Singles chart in July of 1996, staying on the chart for 11 weeks.
