This week we're in December of 2001. This holiday season was tempered with a lot of anxiety around the world, as people still weren't sure what the full repercussions would be stemming from the infamous and tragic 9/11 attacks. Also, the business world was in shock over the spectacular and scandalous implosion of energy giant Enron. It wasn't a lot of fun watching the news back then, so many presumably looked to music for escapism. And here's what they heard, counted down this week by sub host Ed McMann.
40 - "AM to PM," Christina Milian
39 - "7 Days," Craig David
38 - "Son of a Gun (I Betcha Think This Song is About You)," Janet Jackson
37 - "Answer the Phone," Sugar Ray
36 - "Pacific Coast Party," Smash Mouth
35 - "#1," Nelly
34 - "Standing Still," Jewel
33 - "My Sacrifice," Creed
32 - "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of," U2
31 - "Hey Baby," No Doubt featuring Bounty Killer
We begin with female solo acts. New Jerseyite Christina Milian had her first hiy with this meh cut about wanting to dance around the clock. Not that exciting. Janet Jackson is credited on a song here, but she's practically a guest artist on a song dominated by the rapping of Missy Elliott and also featuring a verse by P. Diddy and Carly Simon singing part of the hook from "You're So Vain." Kind of crowded, but I enjoyed it. I like Janet, I like Missy, I like Carly, and Diddy...he didn't do enough to screw things up. And Jewel is here with a nice little folk-popper about hoping someone loves you as much as you do them. It's probably her second-best single.
Two solo men in this batch. British R&B singer Craig David had his biggest American hit with this tale of meeting a lady on a Monday, taking her for drinks on the next day, and then spending the four following days having sex with ther until "we chilled on Sunday." Well, his album title claimed he was Born to Do It, so I guess he has a natural stamina. Good for him. And Nelly is here with his contribution to the soundtrack of the Denzel Washington film Training Day, a song he presumably wrote in the hopes that its chart performance would live up to its title. It didn't, which must have been a blow to Mr. Haynes, for as he says, "two is not a winner, and three, nobody remembers."
The rest of this first section are songs by groups. Sugar Ray had their last pop hit with the hardest-rocking of their charting singles, on which Mark McGrath pleas with a woman to accept his booty call. We all feel your pain, Mark. Smash Mouth, who broke through around the same time as Sugar Ray, also had their last hit around this time. While their earlier hits were predominantly influenced by 60s pop-rock, this one saw them moving forward in time and embracing disco. They defiinitely went out with a whimper. Creed are here with the first single on what we were tricked into believing would be their last album. It's more grungy balladry about friendship and such. I will say that Scott Stapp actually does something approximating "singing" on this track. I'll give him that. U2 picked up another hit with a song that Bono apparently wrote while thinking about what he might have said if he'd been in a position to try and convince INXS' Michael Hutchence not to commit suicide. Definitely one of the highlights of post-Achtung Baby U2. And No Doubt made their return to the Top Ten with this bit of electro-dancehall that Gwen Stefani wrote while observing the behavior of groupies towards her male bandmates. Assisted by a cameo from Jamaican toaster Bounty Killer, it was a cool change of pace that helped the band rebound from the disappointing sales of their previous album and also set the stage for Stefani's solo career.
30 - "One Minute Man," Missy Elliott
29 - "Differences," Ginuwine
28 - "Where the Party At," Jagged Edge featuring Nelly
27 - "Izzo (H.O.V.A)," Jay-Z
26 - "Wherever You Will Go," The Calling
25 - "We Fit Together," O-Town
24 - "Dig In," Lenny Kravitz
23 - "Wherever, Whenever," Shakira
22 - "Smooth Criminal," Alien Ant Farm
21 - "Livin' it Up," Ja Rule
Once again we begin with the ladies. Missy Elliott is here with a song on which she sings, leaving the rapping to guests Ludacris and Trina. It's a rubbery little groove on which Missy expresses her disdain for men who can't last very long, if you know what I mean. Perhaps someone should have introduced her to Craig David. And Colombian Shakira Ripoll had her first English-language hit with this rollicking Latin jam in which she uses the non-existent words "hereover" and 'thereunder," and memorably proclaims that it's "lucky that my breasts are small and humble so you don't confuse them with mountains." Now that is poetry. Whether it's good or bad poetry, you can judge. Myself, I like it.
There are four solo men in this bunch. The soul man born Elgin Baylor Lumpkin had his biggest pop hit with this ballad about how the love of a good woman made him change his ways. Seviceable. Jay-Z is on the scene with one of his signature hits, a rhyme about how he escaped the drug-dealing life to become a player in the music industry delivered over a sample of The Jackson 5's "I Want You Back." This is also the song that introduced the word to the phrase "fo' shizzle my nizzle," for better or for worse. Still, it's a great track, and probably one of the highlights of his recent 8-night run in Brooklyn. Lenny Kravitz scored another hit with this decent rock call to participate in life. Nothing spectacular, but nice to hear on the radio. And Ja Rule raps about performing sex acts in cars over a sample of Stevie Wonder's "Do I Do." Really, there's not much more I can say about that.
We'll finish the first half with groups. R&Bers Jagged Edge had their biggest pop hit with this ode to picking up women and drinking Bacardi and Belvedere in nightclubs. Nelly's verse is nothing special, but I'll admit I like those opening guitar flourishes. L.A. rock band The Calling had there only real hit with this song about promising to be with a loved one even if they should pass on before them. Not a great song by any stretch, but it's easy to see why it resonated with people at this point in time. O-Town were a boy band founded on a reality show produced by impresario and fraudster Lou Pearlman, and their success was pretty much contained entirely within 2001. Their last hit is the usual cheese-pop found within the genre, except somewhat more sexually up front, with a title that's kinda creepy when you think that the majority of their fans were likely 13 and younger. Still, it doesn't quite match the ick factor of their biggest hit, the nocturnally emissionary "Liquid Dreams." And Alien Ant Farm had their only major hit with with this hard rock cover of Michael Jackson's 1989 single about an attack on a woman named Annie. It has charms distinct from those of the original, and was a favorite of my oldest neice when she was a year-and-a-half old. And strangely enough, it made more of an impact in the U.S. at the time than any of the songs on Jackson's then-current Invincible album.
In Part II: revenge by shopping, a nation's soul is soothed by Irish New Age, and the first salvo in Hanna, Alberta's bid for world domination.
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