SUMMER SHOWDOWN
What will this summer’s anthem be?
The season may be just eight days old, but the frontrunner is Beyonce Knowles’ Staxx-influenced debut single, “Crazy in Love.”
“It’s all about Beyonce,” says fan and fitness instructor Donell Redd. “She’s got body, she’s got booty and she can sing.”
Though the single – featuring her boyfriend Jay-Z – has only been out for six weeks, it’s everywhere – pumping out of cars, boomboxes and nightclubs. “The beat is hot, the lyric is good and it’s something that gets you moving,” says Charles Brown, who works at Tower Records downtown.
“Crazy in Love” has all the requirements of a summer anthem: it’s relentlessly upbeat (the crescendo never lets up), it’s about lust (despite the title), and has the same raw, sexy club appeal that made Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” the unofficial summer anthem of 2002.
Still, the former Destiny’s Child diva faces much in the way competition.
Two summers ago, Knowles and her Destiny’s Child cohorts scored summer anthem status with “Independent Women Pt. 2” off the “Charlie’s Angels” soundtrack; this summer, punk-pop princess Pink has a contender with her single, “Feel Good Time,” from the soundtrack to “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.”
Also in the running: Joe Budden’s “Pump It Up” and Sean Paul’s dance-hall hit “Get Busy” – like Knowles’, both can be heard pumping out of cars at all hours.
” ‘Get Busy’ certainly has the right feel,” says Sean Ross, editor in chief of Airplay Monitor. “But it was a few weeks too early to really be a summer anthem.”
Ross, however, thinks that “the timing is right for Lil’ Kim’s ‘Magic Stick,’ [featuring 50 Cent] and for Lumidee’s ‘Never Leave You – Uh Ooh, Uh Oooh!’ ” And Z100’s Romeo says that reggae-inspired tunes like “Get Busy” and “Never Leave You” are always way more popular in New York City than anywhere else in the country.
Fanny Pack, an all-girl teenage trio from New York, has one edge: so far, theirs is the only single of the summer that’s pure novelty. Their obscenely hilarious “Camel Toe” – an ode to the dangers women face when they wear their pants or shorts too tightly – is a huge hit. It may be too huge – Airplay’s Ross thinks that it’s already in danger of being played out.
And then there are the wild cards. Z100’s Romeo thinks that Junior Senior’s effervescent “Move Your Feet,” which is just beginning to get airplay, is “a potential big hit.”
Then there’s the unstoppable 50 Cent. If it hadn’t been released two months ago, his dance track “In Da Club” would have undoubtedly fought it out with Knowles’ “Crazy in Love” for summer supremacy.
Still he’s got some other beats in the running: “If I Can’t” is quickly climbing Billboard’s hot R&B/Hip-Hop singles charts, and his mellower “21 Questions” is currently at the top of Billboards Hot 100, which ranks singles based on airplay and sales.
“Anything he puts out is gold,” says Ross. But “21 Questions” may be too much of a lyrical drag – 50 asks his girlfriend, if she’d still love him if he were in jail- to qualify as a frothy, infectious summer anthem.
Ultimately, says Romeo, a true summer hit will make you want to do only two things: “take your top down if you have a convertible, and crank up [the radio] on the way to the Jersey Shore or the Hamptons.”
And maybe fall in love – or lust.
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