Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything” hit #1

Give Me Everything Pitbull with Ne-Yo, Afrojack, & Nayer

Writer(s): Armando Pérez, Nick van de Wall, Shaffer Smith (see lyrics here) Released: March 18, 2011 First Charted: April 10, 2011 Peak: 11 US, 13 RR, 19 A40, 79 RB, 13 UK, 15 CN, 2 AU (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 6.0 US, 1.2 UK, 11.2 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 701.0 video, 821.16 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: “Give Me Everything” was the second single from Pitbull’s fifth album Planet Pit. For the song, the Cuban-American rapper tapped dance music producer DJ Afrojack and R&B singer Ne-Yo. He also wanted Shakira, but she wasn’t available so he turned to model/actress Nayer, with whom he’d worked before. It was the first trip to the top of the U.S. pop charts for Pitbull, Afrojack, and Nayer, but Ne-Yo had been there before with “So Sick” in 2006. SF The song also peaked at #1 in more than a dozen other countries. WK Afrojack came up with the song while in the shower and headed straight to the studio without even getting dressed. SF He told Billboard, “I think I was in the studio for like fie hours with the towel around me, and I made like the whole instrument on the track.” SF One line in the song says, “I got it locked up like Lindsay Lohan.” The actress wasn’t happy about the song, even though Pitbull tried to claim the line wasn’t about her stint in jail, but that “if you got it locked up, it means you run the show.” SF Lohan wasn’t buying it and slapped a lawsuit on Pitbull. The lawsuit was dismissed on the basis that it didn’t violate Lohan’s right to privacy or exploit her name to sell records. SF Rolling Stone referred to the song as a “club-pop cut” WK and Yahoo! Music’s Paul Grein said it combines hip hop, pop, and “Broadway-style theatricality.” WK NME magazine criticized the song for too many random components, saying, “So, how many types of wrong is this? Well, you’ve got your earnest vocal gibbering about living in the moment. You’ve got the cheap rave wibble, a high frequency irritation that buzzes through like a fly trapped in jism.” WK Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Pitbull DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Ne-Yo NME NME.com (11/11/09). 100 Tracks of the Decade SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia First posted 11/30/2018; last updated 4/20/2023.

2009 Grammy Nominees for Album of the Year

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Blog updated on 1/11/2012 to include images and links. Content untouched..

With the Grammy nominees out now, it is time to let the complaining begin...except that I don’t have much to complain about, at least not about the Album of the Year nominations. This year’s crop – Radiohead’s In Rainbows, Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand, Lil’ Wayne’s Tha Carter III, and Ne-Yo’s Year of the Gentleman is better than most years. All were successful and critically acclaimed. There’s not a lemon in the batch and nothing is completely out of left field.

Click to read more about the album.

So this year’s winner will be...Raising Sand. It’s the safest and most middle-of-the-road. Not a bad choice, actually. It’s hard to argue with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss walking home with album of the year honors. Both are artists well deserving of any accolade thrown their way. It was also an interesting experiment in pairing two artists from seemingly opposite sides of the fence that paid off.

Click to read more about the album.

Still, it would be nice to see Radiohead or Coldplay crowned with the award, but it would be yet another case of getting an album of the year award for the wrong album. Radiohead’s unquestionable pinnacle was 1997’s OK Computer while Coldplay won much more attention and critical acclaim for 2000’s Parachutes or 2002’s A Rush of Blood to the Head.

Click to read more about the album.

Radiohead and Coldplay also fall into too similar a genre and will end up canceling each other out anyway. The same problem is true of Lil’ Wayne and Ne-Yo. The rap and R&B crowds will be split between the two choices.

Click to read more about the album.

So, not a bad crop this year and any of them could win and be less of a head scratcher than some year’s winners.

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Related DMDB Blog Posts:

• Past Album-of-the-Year Grammy Winners Ranked and Revisited (12/4/2011)
  
• 2012 Grammy Nominations (12/1/2011)
  
• Predictions for 2012 Grammy Nominations (11/30/2011)
  
• The 2011 Grammy Awards According to Dave (2/14/2011)
  
• 2011 Grammys: The Steve Theory Won’t Go Home a Winner (2/13/2011)
  

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Beyoncé spends 10th week at #1 with “Irreplaceable”

Irreplaceable Beyoncé

Writer(s): Shaffer "Ne-Yo" Smith, Mikkel S. Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen, Espen Lind, Amund Bjørklund, Beyoncé Knowles (see lyrics here) Released: October 23, 2006 First Charted: October 28, 2006 Peak: 110 US, 18 RR, 10 AC, 15 A40, 19 RB, 4 UK, 2 CN, 13 AU, 12 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 3.63 US, 1.2 UK, 6.7 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.6 radio, 384.6 video, 764.84 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Ne-Yo and the Norwegian production team Stargate had already been to #1 with his song “So Sick” when they started work on “Irreplaceable.” Ne-Yo initially wrote the ballad from a male perspective, but an A&R person suggested the song would work better sung by a woman. Ne-Yo then envisioned it in the hands of Shania Twain or Faith Hill after the acoustic guitar made it sound like country music. WK However, when Beyoncé heard the demo, she asked for some changes and a drum beat was incorporated to give the song a more R&B flavor. SF She worked with Ne-Yo on the lyrics. They said they were aiming for a song to which people of either gender could relate WK but the song ended up as a message of female empowerment as the song unfurls a tale of a woman addressing a cheating lover, informing him that he can be replaced easily. SF It may “remind many listeners of concepts central to Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale which remains a cultural touchstone over 15 years after its release.” AB’00 This was the third U.S. single from Beyoncé’s B’Day album, fitting in well with its overall theme of “female strength and independence.” AB’00 Previous singles “Déjà Vu” and “Ring the Alarm” went to numbers 4 and 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 respectively, but “Irreplaceable” outpaced them both, landing atop the charts for 10 weeks. That impressive feat earned the song the title of Billboard’s song of the year; it was also the best-selling single of 2007. SF The song also won awards from Soul Train for Best R&B/Hip-Hop Single by a Female and from Nickelodean for Kids Choice Award for Favorite Song. The song was also nominated for a Grammy for Record of the Year. Beyoncé took a Spanish language version of the song to the top 10 of the U.S. Hot Latin Songs chart. SF Resources: AB’00 About.com (2009) “Top 100 Pop Songs of the 2000s” SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: Last updated 11/7/2022.

Mario “Let Me Love You” hit #1

Let Me Love You Mario

Writer(s): Scott Storch, Kameron Houff, Shaffer Smith (see lyrics here) Released: October 4, 2004 First Charted: October 9, 2004 Peak: 19 BB, 111 BA, 14 RR, 111 RB, 2 UK, 1 CN, 3 AU (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.50 US, 2.40 UK, 4.95 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.50 radio, 709.0 video, 1362.77 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: R&B singer/songwriter Mario Dewar Barrett was born in 1986 in Baltimore. He was raised primarily by his grandmother because his single mom struggle with heroin addiction. However, Mom did buy him a karaoke machine when he said he wanted to be a singer. He got his shot at 11 years old when he sang Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love to You” at a talent show at Coppin State College. Troy Paterson, a music manager, signed him as a client, adopted him, and moved him to New Jersey. At 14 years old, Clive Davis signed him to J Records. SG He released his debut album, Mario, in 2002. It featured a remake of Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend” which hit #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. He found even bigger success with “Let Me Love You,” “a softly aching unrequited-love ballad” SG from his 2004 sophomore album Turning Point. “Let Me Love You” is a classic song in which the narrator pines for a woman who’s with someone else. The song features “a mechanized melodic backbeat with sturdy, clap-heavy drum track and some lost, wandering '80s-style synth-pillows. The arrangement isn’t dramatic, but it gets the job done. Over that beat, Mario sounds crushed, like he knows that he’s already lost. Mario doesn’t sound like Michael Jackson or anything, but he does sound like a kid who’s listened to a lot of Michael Jackson. There’s at least a bit of that fluidity in his delivery.” SG The chorus is”a sneaky little earworm that’ll rattle around in your mind for a while if you let it in there…The song is clearly the work of professionals. It’s not adventurous. It's not evocative. It’s definitely not exciting. But it’s got an easy warmth that's hard to dislike.” SG The song was co-written by Scott Storch and Kameron Houff, who were members of an R&B group called Madd Crop in the early ‘90s. The song’s third writer was Shaffer Smith, who later had his own successful career under the name Ne-Yo, landing twelve top-10 hits, including the #1 songs “So Sick” and “Give Me Eveything.” Resources: SG Stereogum (12/19/2022). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 1/26/2026.