East side to the West side, pushin' phat rides
Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.
1996 : No Diggity - Blackstreet Ft. Dr Dre and Queen Pen
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I know the refrain but I'm not sure I'll recognise the rest of the song and I also don't think I ever knew this featured Dre (or Queen Pen, for that matter). I'm also not expecting a lot of cover versions when we come to that bit..
The video is 4:30 of hip-hop cliches - cars, clubs, girls shaking their booties, etc - but it doesn't take itself too seriously by including some puppets in there. The song was actually better than I remembered and it mixes hip-hop and R&B elements well although I'd completely forgotten Queen Pen's bit. But what was the main thing I remember from it? Well obviously it was the bit where they were all wearing white dungarees and I instantly thought "well, they don't look very practical".
Wikipedia tells me the song was a bit of a hard sell, it was offered around several people and Blackstreet themselves weren't keen in the slightest, but one of the producers was part of the group and basically ran with it. Once it had been released, Tupac recorded a diss track (of course) but made the somewhat schoolboy error of sampling No Diggity, so Dre simply got a cease and desist order against it.
The critics were mostly nice enough about it, but we have to give props to Tony Farsides who deemed it to be "a good bet for r&b fans and the lower reaches of the charts" - the man can spot a minor hit, can't he? Yup, it only to go to #10 in the UK - rubbish! It did slightly better in the US though, hitting the #1 spot (ending Macarena's FOURTEEN week run at the top). It also got to #1 in Iceland and New Zealand and, according to the numbers, sold more over here than it did in the US. Which somehow I don't quite believe.
Surprisingly enough, Wikipedia does mention a few cover versions - Lucas & Steve got Blackstreet to re-record their vocals over a piano & bass backing, which isn't great but it is interesting. It also tells me that "Washington State produced a cover version "Dog Doogity" encouraging dog owners to pick up their pets' waste" but since it doesn't seem to be anywhere on the internet, I assume Blackstreet's lawyers have been in touch. secondhandsongs.com actually has more than I was expecting but the only artist I know is Klaxons (not bad - very Paolo Nutini). YouTube also offers up Ed Sheeran (EXACTLY as you'd expect) and there are quite a few female versions on there that I like, but I can't pick one above all the rest!
Even though I thought this was better than I remembered, I still don't see it as having won the year - but I guess I'll wait and see what the competition was like. The best selling track of the year was a somewhat surprising Fugee's "Killing Me Softly", followed by a very spicy top five with them Spice Girls having "Wannabe" (#2), "Say You'll Be There" (#4) and "2 Become 1" (#5), with only Spaceman's "Babylon Zoo" (#3) breaking up the party. Other tracks that jump out at me are Baddiel & Skinner's "Three Lions" (#7), The Prodigy's "Firestarter" (#17), Underworld's "Born Slippy Nuxx" (#24), George Michael's "Fastlove" (#25) and OMC's "How Bizarre" (#37).
Other tracks that caught my eye across the charts are George Michael's "Jesus To A Child", Robert Miles's "Children", Björk's "Hyperballad' (a very cool track), Oasis's "Don't Look Back In Anger", Garbage's "Stupid Girl", Shed Seven's "Going For Gold", Mark Snow's "The X-Files" (that got to #2?!?), Gina G's "Ooh Ahh" (#1!!!), Everything But The Girl's "Walking Wounded", Sleeper's "Sale Of The Century", Los Del Rio's "Macarena", Dodgy's "Good Enough", R.E.M.'s "E-Bow The Letter", Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast At Tiffanys", Toni Braxton's "Unbreak My Heart" and The Beautiful South's "Don't Marry Her" - there are some decent tracks in there, quite a few of which are on my general playlist (maybe not Gina G - but it's a bit of a fun for about ten seconds at least).
Looking over the pond, the highest selling track was "Macarena" - it's official, they've got less taste than us! Below that, there's an awful lot of dross but, for a change, there's a few tracks that we've previously missed - Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" and "You Oughta Know", Gin Blossoms' "Til I Hear It From You" and "Follow You Down", Natalie Merchant's "Wonder" and Jewel's "Who Will Save Your Soul". Bizarrely, a different version of "Macarena" was also at #98 - that track really sold a lot of copies over there.
I don't mind Blackstreet's effort at all - it was nice to be reminded of it. But if you really think it's been streamed more than "Wannabe", then you need help.
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