R & B

983. ‘Burn’, by Usher

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2004: the year in which Britain really went wild for a slushy R&B ballad…

Burn, by Usher (his 3rd of four #1s)

2 weeks, 4th – 18th July 2004

Barely two weeks after Mario Winans was mourning his unfaithful lover, and a couple of months on from Eamon’s whining, Usher ponders an age old dilemma. Man I don’t know what I’m gonna do, Without my boo…

Ballads like this had been the sound of the Billboard Hot 100 since the nineties, usually staying at number one for months on end (‘Burn’ itself was the US #1 for eight weeks, and knocked Usher’s earlier single ‘Yeah!’ from top spot). And while they often charted well in Britain, it feels like 2004 was the year that they belatedly broke through and dominated.

Why? I’m not sure. Slumping sales? A lack of British pop talent? More break-ups than usual? Was the insidious internet forcing American slush into the homes of impressionable British kids…? However it happened, it made for some fairly dull number ones. Usher’s vocals are impressive (though his tendency towards a falsetto is grating), yet the production is slow and treacly. While ‘Yeah!’ was certainly dumb; it was at least cutting edge and upbeat.

Another potential symptom of slumping sales seems to be that acts are scoring multiple chart-toppers, closer together. In 2003 only Busted managed multiple #1s, but we’ve now had three repeaters in a row – Britney, McFly and now Usher. A long time ago I described this phenomenon – lesser follow-ups making number one thanks to a huge smash hit – as ‘shadow number ones’. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening here, and it’s going to keep happening over the next few years, until sales start to pick up.

What’s also going to happen over the next few years is more and more syrupy R&B ballads like this making number one in Britain, beyond their natural habitat of the Hot 100. Think Akon, think Ne-Yo. Even normally upbeat females like Beyonce and Rihanna will try their hand at it. And here am I, scanning the horizon for any sign of a guitar…

980. ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’, by Mario Winans ft. Enya & P. Diddy

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Normal service is resumed on top of the charts. Sort of.

I Don’t Wanna Know, by Mario Winans (his 1st and only #1) ft. Enya (her 2nd and final #1) & P. Diddy (his 2nd of three #1s)

2 weeks, 6th – 20th June 2004

At least this isn’t a bitch-fest, with Mario Winans listing the ways his ex-lover has wronged him, cheated on him, done the dirty… In fact, the crux of the song is that ignorance is bliss: I don’t wanna know, If you’re playing me, Keep it on the low, Cause my heart can’t take it anymore… But it’s still a mopey break-up song, in a year that has already seen its fair share of mopey break-up songs. Forget ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’; make that ‘We Don’t Wanna Know’, Mario. Just keep it to yourself.

What makes this track actually quite interesting is the sample from Enya’s eerie ‘Boadicea’, which gives it a real obsessing-in-the-middle-of-the-night atmosphere. Winan’s knew the sample from the Fugees’ 1996 #1 ‘Ready Or Not’, but unlike on that track Enya actually agreed to re-record the sample, receiving a credit and a second chart-topper, sixteen years on from ‘Orinoco Flow’.

Listening now, I wonder how this record would have sounded if they had just stuck with the ‘Boadicea’ sample, and the piano line that enters later? Instead a fairly basic, jittery hip-hop beat comes in, and spoils the desolate feeling. I suppose it might have sounded too similar to ‘Ready or Not’ otherwise, but still. The middle-eight picks things up a bit, as Winans harmonises nicely with himself, but much of is bland and mushy.

I also wonder how this would have sounded without P. Diddy’s rap. Not just because he’s now persona non grata, but because it’s such a non-event. I guess, like the hip-hop beat, they asked him to phone it in and stuck it on because it was the done thing for an R&B track in the mid-‘00s, and because he was a name and Mario Winans wasn’t, rather than because it adds much to the song. Still, it is Sean Combes’ second of three UK #1s, all coming under different pseudonyms.

For Mario Winans, this was his only UK Top 10 as a lead artist. He is more prolific as a producer and songwriter, having worked with Destiny’s Child, Jennifer Lopez and The Weeknd, among various others. He is also the nephew of Bebe Winans, who guested on Eternal’s 1997 chart-topper ‘I Wanna Be the Only One’, and part of the extended (and apparently quite important in the gospel music world) Winans Family.

One other thing to note before we finish is that like the gruesome twosome he knocked off number one, ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ inspired its own answer song. ‘You Should Really Know’ by the Pirates ft. Shola Ama, Naila Boss and Ishani (and Enya, of course) is actually quite good, with an interesting Indian flavour to it, and made #8 later in the year.

979. ‘F.U.R.B. (F U Right Back)’, by Frankee

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Sigh. Ready for Round Two of Britain’s Spring of Silliness?

F.U.R.B (F U Right Back), by Frankee (her 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, 16th May – 6th June 2004

Yes, after a month of Eamon’s whiny ‘F**k It (I Don’t Want You Back)’, his supposed ex-girlfriend Frankee had to have her say. There are two sides to every story… she announces in the intro. So far so stupid. But bear with me as I explain why this is the far better record.

‘F.U.R.B.’ is essentially the same song: same tune, same vaguely doo-wop melody, same amount of swearing. But whereas Eamon’s version was plodding and self-indulgent, Frankee’s version is sassy and, in places, pretty hilarious.

The sass is added very easily, by putting some synth blasts at the end of each bar to liven up the original’s treacly tempo, and by adding a couple more beats and clicks to the rhythm. And then by the fact that, lyrically, Frankee doesn’t go in for any moping. She goes for the low blows, and hits Eamon where it hurts. He was, it turns out, a crap shag.

You thought you could really make me moan, I had better sex on my own… and Fuck all those nights you thought you broke my back, Well guess what yo, Your sex was wack… I mean yes it’s childish, yes it’s tawdry, yes it’s vulgar. But I think a line like I do admit I’m glad, I didn’t catch your crabs is funny, and well-deserved after having sat through multiple plays of Eamon’s original.

And at one point there is a moment of precise critical clarity, when Frankee sings: If you really didn’t care, You wouldn’t wanna share, Telling everybody just how you feel… Exactly, Eamon! By writing an entire song about how much you don’t care, you’re showing the world that you really do! Idiot.

I feel there is a comment to be made here, on the power imbalance in male-female relationships. Why is the woman allowed to be rude post-breakup, while the man comes across as vindictive? If Eamon claimed Frankee was bad in bed then it would be very ungentlemanly. Frankee does it and it’s empowering. But also, do two songs as lowbrow as this deserve any deep analysis? Probably not.

Eamon denied that Frankee had ever been his girlfriend, but at the same time claimed he had auditioned her for the role of recording this answer song (he earned royalties for both), and welcomed her into “the world of ho-wop” (his words). Like Eamon, Frankee released an album off the back of this gimmick, but unlike Eamon she remains a gold-star one-hit wonder. She subsequently left the music business, and in 2016 joined the NYPD.

Swear-less:

Swear-full:

978. ‘F**k It (I Don’t Want You Back)’, by Eamon

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I recently called Usher’s ‘Yeah!’ the song of 2004. Maybe I should rethink that. Is there a song more of its time and place than this next number one…

F**k It (I Don’t Want You Back), by Eamon (his 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, 18th April – 16th May 2004

And can we lock it in a lead-lined vault, bury it in quicklime, and make sure it stays in 2004? Do we have to revisit these seven weeks in which the British record-buying public lost their collective minds, and made ho-wop a thing? Sadly yes. I can’t very well start skipping chart-toppers this far in.

Let’s start by grasping for positives. There is a grain of a retro doo-wop/soul melody here, and had the vocals, the lyrics, and the production, been handled differently then this might have been a nice song. Unfortunately, the vocals are thin and whiny, and the production a cheap, pre-set hip-hop beat.

And then there are the lyrics. I took Busted to task for their toxicity in ‘Who’s David’, but this is next level. Eamon’s ex-girlfriend is, at various points during the song, a whore, a burnt bitch, and a hag. Fuck all those kisses, They didn’t mean jack, Fuck you you ho, I don’t want you back… In total, I make it twenty uses of the F-bomb, alongside various other profanities, making this the sweariest number one ever at this point.

Now, I’m not a prude (the asterisks in the post title are me being a stickler for accuracy, as that is how the record was published); but this record is just relentlessly nasty. Couldn’t Eamon have been a little more inventive in his revenge, than bleating about how he had to throw all the presents she gave him out? I’m not against making a song about a break-up, if you really must – though I’ll always think it a bit self-indulgent – but did recording this make Eamon feel better? Really?

Of course, analysing this record on any level is essentially pointless. We all now know that it was a cynical marketing gimmick. Our very next post, involving Eamon’s ‘girlfriend’ Frankee and her answer song, will make that very clear. And to an extent it worked, as previously unheard of Eamon scored the year’s second-highest selling single. But it didn’t lead to any sustained success whatsoever, as his charmingly titled follow-up ‘I Love Them Ho’s’ stalled at #27, and was his only other Top 40 appearance.

Swear-less:

Swear-full:

976. ‘Yeah!’ by Usher ft. Lil’ John & Ludacris

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Every year has one number one that sounds utterly of that time. (In fact, that would be an interesting exercise, to go back through each year and choose one chart-topper to represent it…) Anyway, here is 2004’s.

Yeah!, by Usher (his 2nd of four #1s) ft. Lil’ John & Ludacris

2 weeks, 21st March – 4th April 2004

Compare and contrast ‘Yeah!’ with ‘Toxic’, the other contender for ‘song of the year’. ‘Toxic’ is timeless, while ‘Yeah!’ remains stuck in its time and place. But maybe I’m biased, as I was always going to be Team Britney, and to lean towards fun female pop. ‘Yeah!’ is the male equivalent though, in that it set the tone for boy-led, R&B/hip-hop pop for much of the rest of the decade.

It’s all homies, shawties, and booties – three lyrical must haves for a song of this type – and a chorus that is just Yeah! repeated twelve times. Not that the lyrics of ‘Toxic’ were Shakespearian; but this is really dumb. Musically it is equally simplistic, with a relentlessly memorable air-raid syren synth that runs, unwavering, from start to finish, complemented by what sounds like a phone ringing off the hook. This was one of the first hit records to bring crunk – a danceable subgenre of hip-hop from the Southern US – mainstream, and certainly the first UK #1 to do so. (It is, I think, one of only two crunk #1s, and is by far the lesser of the two…)

Also bringing the crunk is the appearance of Lil John, one of the godfathers of the genre, though he does little more than repeat what Usher sings, and shout ‘Yeah!’. (Considering that some artists have sung entire choruses on recent chart-toppers and not received a credit, Lil John can consider himself very lucky.)

I’m sounding pretty down on this record, when I do actually quite like it. And, considering that it instantly drags me back to being eighteen, it does hold some nostalgic weight. What saves it is the appearance of Ludacris, a rapper who enlivens any song he appears on. He never sounds like he’s taking his job seriously – and I mean that as a compliment, as he doesn’t have a serious job (though most rappers would argue otherwise…) He manages to keep his rap clean, but also delivers potentially one of the filthiest lines in chart-topping history: These women all on the prowl, If you hold the head steady, Imma milk the cow…

I’m just amazed that this was Luda’s only number one single, as ‘ft. Ludacris’ feels as common a ‘00s suffix as ‘ft. Jay-Z’. As for Usher, this was his second number one, over six years on from his teenage debut. Listen to ‘U Make Me Wanna’ then this back to back, and you’ll hear how much US R&B changed either side of the millennium. He won’t have to wait anywhere near as long for his third chart-topper.

958. ‘Breathe’, by Blu Cantrell ft. Sean Paul

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Another 2003 #1 that seemed to appear out of nowhere at the time…

Breathe, by Blu Cantrell (her 1st and only #1) ft. Sean Paul (his 1st of two #1s)

4 weeks, 3rd – 31st August 2003

And another remix. Shall we dub this the summer of the remix, after ‘Ignition’, this, and the chart-topper up next? Compared to R. Kelly’s re-tuned hit, the differences between the original ‘Breathe’ and this chart-topping version are minor: a mix that brings the distinctive horns more to the front, and Sean Paul. (The best part of this ‘summer of the remix’ is that the fact they are remixes is introduced to the listener at the start of each track: Sean Paul and Blu Cantrell, Remix that gonna make yo’ head swell…)

It’s a pretty simple song. There are the big, brassy horns – a sample from Dr Dre’s 1999 hit ‘What’s the Difference’, which in turn had been borrowed, and slowed down, from a 1966 Charles Aznavour hit called ‘Parce Que Tu Crois’ (who thus features on an unlikely second #1) – and Cantrell’s big, brassy vocals. She has a very mid-nineties diva, why use one note per syllable when you can use ten, sort of voice. It’s impressive, and makes you wonder why she didn’t become a bigger star.

It is in direct contrast with Sean Paul’s deadpan rapped intro and verse. If Blu Cantrell felt like she’d appeared out of nowhere, then Sean Paul was already one of the breakout stars of the year, with three Top 10 hits of his own and a #2 alongside Beyoncé to come. I always think of him as the successor to Shaggy, in terms of his indecipherable patois and throaty delivery (though Shaggy always seemed to be having a bit more fun with it).

So, I like this song. It breezes by, and it has a wonderfully swinging hook. (Any song that brings Dr Dre and Charles Aznavour into the same room has to be worth something.) I do wonder if I am more disposed towards this song because, like the remix to ‘Ignition’, it was one of the songs of the summer between high school and university. I have a clear memory of this playing in a friend’s garden as we had a barbecue… But I also wonder if that matters. What is the point of music if we take memory out of the equation and dissect it on a cold, emotionless slab?

Sean Paul would go on to have a career of some longevity, though his next number one is a decade off and his biggest hit won’t come until 2016 (and whether or not he’s even credited on it is a bone of contention). Blu Cantrell meanwhile would release one more album, and enjoy one more Top 40 hit. Interestingly, her biggest hit in her native US (2001’s ‘Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops)’) was a much smaller hit in the UK, as ‘Breathe’ was in the States. At the time there were rumours about her having had a career in porn prior to the musical success – to the point that I instantly remembered this fact twenty three years on – but it turns out she had had nothing of the sort. A photoshoot aged eighteen was as raunchy as she got. Maybe that counted as ‘porn’ in the more innocent days of 2003, or maybe it all stemmed from the fact her name was ‘Blu’…

956. ‘Crazy in Love’, by Beyoncé

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The song of the summer for 2003, for the noughties, perhaps for all time…

Crazy in Love, by Beyoncé (her 1st of six solo #1s)

3 weeks, 6th – 27th July 2003

It comes in strong. The way those horns slam in, taking the door off its hinges, making everyone withing a mile-radius jump to their feet. The first words uttered are Jay-Z’s Yes! It’s hard to imagine a more upbeat start to a pop song.

I’m not usually one to describe something as ‘joyous’, and would narrow my eyes at any song that someone described in that way. But it just fits as a description here. For a song that is about being head over heels in love, it ticks every box. From the blaring horns – a sample from the Chi-Lites’ 1970 recording ‘Are You My Woman (Tell Me So)’ – to the uh-oh-uh-oh-oh-no-no fills. From the grab you by the shoulders chorus to the glorious middle-eight, written by Beyoncé herself: Got me lookin’, So crazy my baby…

Hooks, hooks all the way. I’m listening to it now with a smile across my face, despite hearing it almost every day that summer and pretty regularly ever since. It’s the real litmus test of a classic: is it good in an art gallery stand-and-admire-it sort of way, or is it good in a still-gets-you-up-dancing-twenty-three-years-later sort of way? ‘Crazy in Love’ is firmly in the latter camp. It feels trite to say, but it still sounds fresh all these years on.

It also announces Beyoncé, who had of course enjoyed two #1s with Destiny’s Child, as the female star of the ‘00s. It wasn’t her debut solo single – that had been ‘Work It Out’, a #7 from the ‘Austin Powers: Goldmember’ soundtrack, and a perfectly serviceable soul-funk track – but it did feel like it. Plus there was the intrigue of Jay-Z guesting, and the rumours about their relationship being more than just purely musical.

*I must admit to having to add an edit here, as after writing the entire post I have just discovered that Jay-Z is NOT credited on the single, or by the Official Charts Company… I had always just assumed this was ‘Beyoncé ft. Jay-Z’!*

In fact, it’s interesting to approach this from the angle of Jay-Z actually being the bigger solo star at the time. He’d first appeared in the Top 10 back in 1997, and had enjoyed several big feature hits over the years, as well as his own #2 ‘Annie’ remake, ‘Hard Knock Life’ in 1998. ‘ft. Jay-Z’ became a pop song cliché in the ‘00s, as ‘ft. Pitbull’ would in the ‘10s, but he was a genuine chart force. In fact, ‘03 Bonnie and Clyde’ had been a #2 hit a few months earlier, as Jay-Z ft. Beyoncé, as a sort of soft-launch of their romantic-slash-professional relationship.

From this point on though, Beyoncé would be the bigger star. The biggest female pop star of the century? Possibly, though I would argue that she has never produced a moment bigger than this, her ‘debut’ solo single. That’s not a criticism; it would be hard for anyone to top a track as good as this. The only one of her following five chart-toppers that comes close to this is… Well, I won’t give that away. All I’ll say is that it’s a duet with the one woman who can rival her for the ‘female star of the century’ title…

954. ‘Ignition (Remix)’, by R. Kelly

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Okay. This is not the first time we’ve met a sex offender at the top of the charts, and it won’t be the last. As with Rolf Harris, Gary Glitter, P Diddy, and Michael Jackson, and probably every rockstar active in the 1960s and 70s, we take a moment to acknowledge the crimes…

Ignition (Remix), by R. Kelly (his 2nd of three #1s)

4 weeks, 11th May – 8th June 2003

We also take a moment to acknowledge that this is a proper old school jam. It’s the freakin’ weekend baby I’m about to have me some fun… R. Kelly would like us to leave our credibility, and our clothes too, before entering the Stretch Navigator, for three minutes of soulful R&B silliness. There’s crystal poppin’, there’s coke and rum, there’s an after party, there are toot toots and beep beeps… If you’ve ever seen an episode of ‘Trapped in the Closet’, R. Kelly’s hip-hopera, this record is much the same vibe.

The original ‘Ignition’ had been recorded a year previously, but had existed for several years before that, perhaps explaining its retro sound. Due to an album leak, Kelly decided to remix several of its tracks. It was a good decision, as the original ‘Ignition’ is dull and treacly. It also adds to the feel of 2003 as a retrospective year, with big hits like ‘Make Luv’, ‘Loneliness’, and ‘Beautiful’ harking back to various different eras (plus a cover of ‘Spirit in the Sky’ for good measure).

So yes, this song is fun and goofy. I am nostalgically attached to it as it was number one when I finished high school, and was one of the songs of that long summer before I went to university. However, it has to be said that a song about getting a girl drunk and taking her back to a hotel, as well as select lines – I’m about to take my key and stick it in the ignition – leave a certain ickiness knowing what we now know.

Although, Kelly’s crimes were already well known in 2003. Rumours had been around since he’d ‘discovered’ fifteen-year-old Aaliyah in the mid-nineties, even before his 1st chart-topper ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ and in 2002 he was prosecuted on child pornography charges. Thus, the remix to ‘Ignition’ made #1 with the public in full knowledge of Kelly being a wrong ‘un. There’s no way that would happen today. (I am going to cast no moral judgement on this. Listening to a criminal’s songs does not mean you endorse the crimes, but I respect those who refuse to.)

Before we finish, note how this is already the fourth number of the year to stay at the top for a full month, with another four-weeker along straight after this. In my last post I mentioned plummeting sales, which might have contributed to these longer-running #1s (the early ‘90s was another time of low sales and long stretches at the top). But compared to a few years ago, when the year 2000’s fifty-two weeks gave us forty-two number ones, it’s another big shift.

917. ‘More Than a Woman’, by Aaliyah

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We start 2002 with two posthumous number ones, almost like how at the Oscars they do an ‘In Memorandum’ segment. Which pop stars did we lose in the past year?

More Than a Woman, by Aaliyah (her 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 13th – 20th January 2002

Well, we had lost prodigal R&B star Aaliyah in a plane crash back in August, aged just twenty-two. ‘More Than a Woman’ was her first single to be released in the UK since her death, and is a very modern, very of the moment slice of American pop.

It’s cut from the same cloth as earlier Destiny’s Child and Jennifer Lopez #1s, with an almost classical riff playing over a staccato beat. One reviewer at the time described it as ‘Baroque liquid funk’, which is a great description, if a little over the top. It does though, have a bit more beef to it than DC and J-Lo. I especially like the dirty, squelchy synths, which elevate this above some of the other US recent R&B tracks I’ve struggled to enjoy, and which take centre-stage in an extended, funky fade-out.

I was going to accuse this record of not having a real hook, but the more I play it the more it grows on me. And I’ll admit that the strange, slightly off-kilter chorus has stayed in my brain ever since it was in the charts. It’s oddly catchy. In the very ‘of its time’ video, Aaliyah and her backing dancers work it in what looks to be the inside of a combustion engine, and the churning pistons fit the thick and deliberate beat nicely.

Although this probably only got to number one as a tribute, it isn’t hard to imagine ‘More Than a Woman’ spending a January week at #1 even with Aaliyah alive and well. She had been a regular chart presence since her debut in 1994, aged just fifteen. (She was R Kelly’s protégé, something that’s come under more scrutiny since his offences came to light). Her biggest song, ‘Try Again’, had been her only US #1, and only previous British Top 10 hit, in 2000.

She was also a long-time collaborator with Timbaland, meaning that this is the first chart-topping appearance for one of the 2000’s defining producers. After ‘More Than a Woman’, for sadly obvious reasons, the hits dried up for Aaliyah. Her legacy seems to be one of what might have been, for an experimental and talented artist who had already been dubbed the ‘Princess of R&B’.

In part two of our posthumous double-header, she was replaced at the top by another recently deceased artist, whose legacy had long since been established…

907. ‘Too Close’, by Blue

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Much like the Dalai Lama, when one boyband dies another is born…

Too Close, by Blue (their 1st of three #1s)

1 week, from 2nd – 9th September 2001

And it’s fitting that Blue depose Five’s final number one, because in many ways they were their true successors. A bit street, a bit cool, not too heavy on the ballads… They were the Westlife, perhaps, to Five’s Boyzone; or the N*Sync to Five’s Backstreet Boys.

And their number one debut – their second single – is a fun track. Like ‘Let’s Dance’, it’s a slice of disco-revival pop, but a slinkier, sexier, slower jam. ‘Too Close’ had been a US #1 just three years earlier, recorded by R&B trio Next. Their original wasn’t completely unknown in the UK, making #24, but there was plenty of room for a bigger version of what is a fun song. What’s interesting is that covering such a recent hit probably delayed any chance of Blue making it in the US (Lee Ryan’s comments on 9/11 probably didn’t help either…)

While the Next version is a much purer, more minimal ‘90s R&B record, I enjoy the quicker tempo and the poppier touches used in Blue’s cover. They retain the somewhat risqué lyrics, though, and I can’t ever imagine a Westlife #1 opening with the line: All the slow songs you requested, You’re dancing like you’re naked… Ooh it’s almost like we’re sexin’… Despite my general revulsion for the term ‘sexing’, I can enjoy this record, and its tale of trying to hide an erection while slow dancing.

An unnamed female singer, listed only as Awsa in the credits, feels a little bump coming through… The Blue boys protest that you’re making it hard for me! It’s all fairly childish, but I do appreciate any attempt at double entendre in chart-topping singles. Again though, it’s interesting that straight off the bat Blue weren’t cultivating a particularly kid-friendly image. Rewind ten years and it’s impossible to imagine Take That trying something similarly saucy. Is it indicative of deep societal change across the turn of the millennium? Or did Blue’s management just assume the kids wouldn’t pick up on the innuendo?

It’s also interesting, to return to the Five vs Blue comparison, to hear a late-nineties boyband next to a noughties boyband. Five, for all their pierced eyebrows and swagger, were still very goofy, and very pop-leaning on songs like ‘Slam Dunk da Funk’. Blue were a more grown-up proposition from the off, with this record’s slick, very Americanised R&B. Not that Blue were the first boyband to discover sex – think ‘Deep’ by East 17, or Another Level’s ‘Freak Me’ – but that it’s still interesting to note how pop music is slowly settling into its 21st century sound.