The Black Eyed Peas hit #1 with “Boom Boom Pow”

Last updated 3/28/2020.

Boom Boom Pow Black Eyed Peas

Writer(s): William Adams, Allan Pineda, Jaime Gomez, Stacy Ferguson (see lyrics here) Released: November 12, 2008 First Charted: March 8, 2009 Peak: 112 US, 16 RR, 21 A40, 51 RB, 12 UK, 19 CN, 16 AU (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 6.9 US, 0.73 UK, 10.8 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.5 radio, 367.9 video, -- streaming

Awards:

About the Song: With their lead single from their fifth studio album, The E.N.D., the Black Eyed Peas achieved a feat they hadn’t accomplished before – they topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. The song spent an amazing 12 weeks atop the charts – but it was only the beginning. The Peas didn’t have to wait long for their next #1 – the album’s follow-up single, “I Gotta Feeling,” followed “Pow” into the pole position, giving the Peas the rare distinction of knocking themselves from the top. “Feeling” proved even more successful, holding on to #1 for 14 weeks – giving the Peas a full six-month lock on #1! All four members – Will.i.am, Fergie, Taboo, and apl.de.ap – have solo raps in the futuristic-sounding, auto-tuned song. Boston Globe described the song and others from the album as “substance-free, grammatically suspect dance floor jams” which were nonetheless “booty-shaking pleasures.” WK Digital Spy’s Nick Levine called it “a fairly ridiculous robopop stomper” but also said, “Frankly who cares? Right now this just sounds cracking.” WK Rolling Stone said it was “an assault on the senses, and on good taste. And it’s the best thing The Black Eyed Peas have ever recorded.” WK Will.i.am acknowledge the song’s unusual and repetitive nature when he told Rolling Stone, “It has one note. It says ‘Boom’ 168 times. The structure has three beats in one song. It’s not lyrics – it’s audio patterns, structure, architecture.” SF He told Billboard the song “was made for underground clubs. Like, if I would’ve thought that was gonna be a radio song, I would’ve made it different…‘Boom Boom Pow’ is proof that if something’s dope, regardless of if it has that sprinkled radio vibe, that it should be played on the radio and the people are gonna like it.” WK People definitely liked it. They watched the video on YouTube more than 100 million times WK and scooped up 6 million copies of the song in the U.S. and another 2.5 million internationally. It was the best-selling song on iTunes in 2009. It was a big seller right out of the gate, hitting 465,000 downloads in its first week, making it the highest sum which had been achieved at that point by a group in one week. SF Resources and Related Links: Black Eyed Peas’s DMDB Music Maker Encyclopedia entry SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia

Lady Gaga hit #1 with “Poker Face”

Poker Face Lady Gaga

Writer(s):Stefani Germanotta/ Nadir “RedOne” Khayat (see lyrics here) Released: September 23, 2008 First Charted: November 17, 2008 Peak: 11 US, 15 RR, 12 A40, 75 RB, 13 UK, 19 CN, 18 AU, 10 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 10.0 US, 1.29 UK, 14.0 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.5 radio, 1122.54 video, 611.09 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: As her follow-up single to the #1 “Just Dance,” Lady Gaga had her work cut out for her with “Poker Face.” With lyrics about gambling and her own experiences with bisexuality, she wasn’t exactly going for the most radio-friendly theme either. She told Fashionista 101 that the song was about “playing with guys as if she was a poker player.” SF As she said to an audience at an April 11, 2009, performance in Palm Springs, California, the song was about being “with a man but fantasizing about a woman, hence the man in the song needs to read her ‘Poker Face’ to understand what is going through her mind.” WK No worries, though – the song not only followed “Just Dance” to the top of the U.S. charts, but peaked at #1 in sixteen other countries as well. WK It made Gaga the first artist to top the U.S. charts with her first two entries since Christina Aguilera did it nearly a decade earlier WK with “Genie in a Bottle” and “What a Girl Wants.” It became “the song with which she placed her stamp on the waning months of the decade.” LR Producer RedOne, with whom Gaga wrote “Poker Face” and “Just Dance,” told Billboard magazine how the two clicked immediately. “We’re not overthinking. We just do what we feel right.. Before you know it the song is pretty much done…We wrote ‘Just Dance’ in one hour. Done. ‘Poker Face’? One hour. It just happened. Magic.” SF Both songs sold 4 million downloads in the U.S., making her the first artist in digital history to do so. WK The songs have gone on to sell six million each. Another 900,000 downloads in the U.K. also made “Face” the most downloaded song in Britain since they introduced the download chart in 2004. WK Resources: LR LowResolution.blogspot.com (1/4/2010). “Retrospecticus: 100 Favorite Songs of the Decade” SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 3/15/2020; last updated 10/17/2022.

100 years ago: “Shine on, Harvest Moon” hit #1

Shine on, Harvest Moon Harry MacDonough with Miss Walton

Writer(s): Jack Norworth, Nora Bayes (see lyrics here) First Charted: April 10, 1909 Peak: 19 US, 13 GA, 15 SM (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 (sheet music) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming

Shine on, Harvest Moon Ada Jones & Billy Murray

First Charted: May 15, 1909 Peak: 15 US, 13 GA (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 (sheet music) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming

Awards (MacDonough): Click on award for more details. Awards (Jones/Murray):

About the Song: Nora Bayes was a Broadway and vaudevillian performer in the early 1900s. In 1908, she married Jack Norworth, a singer, songwriter, and dancer, who also wrote “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” The pair toured and composed together. The duo’s collaboration, “Shine on, Harvest Moon,” “became her musical trademark” TY2 and one of “the most recognized of the many ‘moon’ ballads.” RCG The song is about “a guy begging the harvest moon to shine brightly so he and his girl can ‘stay outdoors and spoon.’” TY2 It was “decidedly old-fashioned and a product of twentieth century innocence.” RCG She sang the song as a solo act SM in Ziegfeld Follies of 1908. The couple didn’t last, divorcing in 1913 (the second of five marriages for Bayes!), SF but the song survived. Both performed it the rest of their lives. RCG It became a favorite for player pianos and barbershop quartets RCG and “remains a perennial among amateur singers everywhere.” DJ-172 It had an impressive chart life with seven takes on the song peaking in the top 20 over the next quarter century. The first, and most successful, was a duet between Harry MacDonough and Miss Walton (believed to be Elise Stevenson) in 1909. They took the song to #1 for 9 weeks. Their version used the verse, chorus, and a second verse while another popular duo version by Ada Jones and Billy Murray did just the first verse and chorus. SM That one also went to #1 while other versions that year, one by the duo of Frank Stanley and Henry Burr, another by Bob Roberts, went to #2 and #6 respectively. The following year, Arthur Pryor also went top 5 with the song. “Harvest Moon” was revived by Ruth Etting in Ziegfeld Follies of 1931. DJ Ethel Waters took the song back to the top ten that same year. Two years later, Kate Smith took the song back to the top 20. Over the years, the song has also been sung by Judy Garland, Vera Lynn, Glenn Miller, and Liza Minnelli. RCG At age 8, Britney Spears sang it for her Mickey Mouse Club audition. WK It has also appeared in at least a dozen films, most notably an eponymously titled 1944 biopic starring Ann Sheridan and Dennis Morgan as Bayes and Norworth. RCG A 1938 Roy Rogers western was named after the song and Laurel & Hardy performed it in their 1939 film The Flying Deuces. It was also used in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), Look for the Silver Lining (1949), Nancy Goes to Rio (1950), I’ll See You in My Dreams (1952), The Eddy Duchin Story (1957), TY2 and Pennies from Heaven (1978). WK Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Elise Stevenson (Miss Walton) DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Nora Bayes DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Jack Norworth Archive.org: download the song DJ David Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 172. SM Sharon Mawer Charts (1900-1968) RCG RimChiGuy.com The Old Songs (1900-1929) TY2 Don Tyler (2007). Hit Songs, 1900-1955. McFarland & Company, Inc.: Jefferson, North Carolina. Page 44. Related Links: First posted 4/10/2012; last updated 12/15/2022.