Robbed hit of the week 6/14/21 - Swirl 360's "Hey Now Now"...

 

 

"Hey Now Now" - Swirl 360

from the albums Ask Anybody and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (both 1998)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #47 (two weeks)

 

This week's robbed hit comes from the duo Swirl 360. Twins Denny and Kenny Scott grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and moved to L.A. and changed their act's name from Fools of Faith in order to be signed by Mercury Records. Their first single, "Hey Now Now", was a slice of power-pop written by the pair with John Shanks (eventually a big name in the production field) and Shelly Peiken (who co-wrote Meredith Brooks' #2 hit "Bitch"). The result sounded like Hanson as a Beatles cover band redoing Madonna's "Ray Of Light" with a twinge of the other twin brother duo Nelson thrown in...

"Hey Now Now" got to #30 on the radio chart, but stalled under the official top-40 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 pop chart in August of 1998. Internationally, the single did better in Canada, peaking at #12, and New Zealand at #22, and was a minor British hit at #61. Their debut album Ask Anybody, though, suffered in the collapse of the music biz in the megamerger that formed Universal Records. While the track also appeared on a couple more movie soundtracks, most notably the better-than-it-had-a-right-to-be I Still Know What You Did Last Summer tie-in, it would be their last charting hit. They re-emerged in 2004 with a second forgotten album California Blur. 

 

The I Still Know What You Did Last Summer soundtrack also produced another minor pop hit with the film's star Jennifer Love Hewitt's "How Do I Deal", which went to #59 in the U.S., but was a top ten success in New Zealand (#5) and Australia (#8).

(6/10)