Gwen Stefani “Hollaback Girl” hit #1

Hollaback Girl Gwen Stefani

Writer(s): Gwen Stefani, Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo (see lyrics here) Released: March 22, 2005 First Charted: April 2, 2005 Peak: 14 BB, 19 DG, 16 RR, 18 A40, 8 RB, 8 UK, 1 CN, 11 AU, 14 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 7.0 US, 0.60 UK, 7.99 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.40 radio, 256.20 video, 804.69 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Gwen Stefani was born in 1969 in California. She rose to fame as the lead singer with No Doubt, a ska-pop outfit that sold more than 15 million copies of their 1995 album Tragic Kingdom on the strength of hits like “Don’t Speak” and “the pop-feminist anthem” SG “Just a Girl.” In 2000, No Doubt released the platinum-selling Return of Saturn. That same year, Stefani guested on Moby’s “South Side” (#14) and Eve’s “Let Me Blow Ya Mind” (#2) before No Doubt released Rock Steady in 2001. It gave the band top-ten hits with “the cartoonish bop ‘Hey Baby’” SG and “the slow-winding love-ballad ‘Underneath It All.’” SG One more top-ten hit came in 2003 with the band’s cover of Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life.” Stefani embarked on a solo career in 2004 with the album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. “She had big ideas about centrist pop music, about bringing back the bright and dizzy ‘80s sounds that she’d loved in high school.” SG The album’s first single, “the hammering dance track ‘What You Waiting For?’,” SG was “about the anxiety of starting a solo career” SG and stalled at #47. The second single, “Rich Girl,” reunited Stefani with “Eve and Dr. Dre to flip a Fiddler on the Roof number into gleaming dancehall-pop,” SG reaching #7. It was the album’s third single that was most responsible for propelling the album to sales of eight million worldwide. The #1 single "Hollaback Girl” was “a berserk cheerleader-chant earworm about wanting to fight Courtney Love.” SG Stefani recorded the song with the Neptunes, the production team of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo with whom she’d worked on No Doubt’s top-20 hit “Hella Good.” According to Williams, supermodel Naomi Campbell inspired the song’s title. She referenced a song called “Holla Back” by Fabolous in telling someone she had a name and wasn’t a “hollaback girl.” SG For Stefani, however, it was retaliation for Hole’s Courtney Love characterizing Stefani as a high school cheerleader. SG For the song, Stefani adopted “the persona of a high-school kid confronting another high-school kid.” SG “Hollaback Girl” “ultimately comes off as less of a song and more of a collection of catchphrases.” SG “Stefani does more shouting than singing, and she does that singing in an exaggerated valley-girl Betty Boop accent.” SG The song’s “beat imitates the sound of funky Southern HBCU marching bands, and that sound animated a lot of the best rap and R&B hits of the mid-‘00s.” SG Resources: SG Stereogum (12/23/2022). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan Related Links: First posted 1/23/2026.

Nirvana “Heart-Shaped Box” released

Heart-Shaped Box Nirvana

Writer(s): Kurt Cobain (see lyrics here) Released: August 30, 1993 First Charted: September 11, 1993 Peak: 4 AR, 13 MR, 5 UK, 17 CN, 21 AU, 3 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.6 UK, 0.65 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 306.82 video, 687.75 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Nirvana’s second album, 1991’s Nevermind, sent them into the stratosphere. It was a #1 album that has sold more than 30 million copies, fueled by the highest-ranked song of the 1990s, “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It not only cemented the band’s legacy as the quintessential grunge band, but one of the most important bands of the ‘90s. It also made singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain into the reluctant voice of a generation. That’s a helluva lot of expectations to heap on a follow-up album, but In Utero didn’t disappoint. It wasn’t Nevermind – there was no way it could be – but it was still a successful, widely-acclaimed effort. While the lead single, “Heart-Shaped Box,” didn’t even dent the Billboard Hot 100, it was actually more successful than “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on the album rock and alternative rock charts. Cobain claimed the song was “inspired by a television report of children suffering from cancer.” SF It can also be interpreted as a reference to a uterus since “the lyrics talk about…an aborted fetus from the first-person viewpoint.” SF However, it was widely assumed it was about his volatile relationship with his wife, Courtney Love. She sent him a heart-shaped box after their second meeting and lyrics in the song reference an unstable romantic relationship. SF Writer Toby Creswell says, “There’s not doubt that he loved her and that she gave him something he needed. But it’s also clear that he regarded the volatile relationship as a co-dependency.” TC The song expresses a “feeling of entrapment” TC and Cobain definitely felt trapped by “addiction, his fame, his desire for fame, and his marriage.” TC Resources: TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Pages 144-5. SF Songfacts Related Links: First posted 2/19/2024; last updated 4/14/2024.