Songoftheday 6/14/22 - Talk to me tell me your name, you blow me off like it's all the same...

 

 

"She Bangs" - Ricky Martin

from the album Sound Loaded (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #12 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 12

 

Today's song comes from Ricky Martin, who left his childhood stardom in Menudo far behind and ushered in the "Latin Explosion" of 1999 with his self-titled debut English album, which spun off three top-40 hits with "Shake Your Bon-Bon", "She's All I Ever Had", and the #1 smash "Livin' La Vida Loca".  While Ricky was still touring behind the album, he was coerced into concurrently recording his follow-up album, Sound Loaded, which came out right before the holiday season of 2000. The lead single from the record was the uptempo attempt to recapture the fire of "Livin' La Vida Loca". "She Bangs", written by song doctor Desmond Child with producers Walter Afanasieff and Draco Rosa, goes through the same theme - the carefree woman that's escaping his grasp to settle down - and with the same punchy horn-filled production but at an even more frantic pace. Lady Luck is even invoked again, but this time it seems a little more plastic, like a recreation for a theme park ride of his earlier #1 hit. The music video is even more cheesy, with Ricky sometimes green-screened on to a party from footage of him underwater. Also, he's entangled with a bunch of ladies, but also one muscly dude. Hmmmm.  But strike when the iron is hot, and with his fans and radio giving a more muted green light, Martin wound up with his next trip to the top-40...

"She Bangs" returned Ricky to the American pop Top-40 in December of 2000. The song climbed to #24 on Billboard magazine's older-skewing Adult Top-40 radio chart and #30 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic radio format list while the remixes of the track, done by DJ Obadam, helped it go to #27 on their Dance Club Play tally. Internationally, the single topped the charts in Italy and Sweden, and made the top ten in Spain (#2), New Zealand (#2), Greece (#2), Poland (#2), the UK (#3), Canada (#3), Australia (#3), Finland (#3), Norway (#4), Hungary (#4), Switzerland (#7), Romania (#7), Ireland (#8), and Denmark (#9). It also reached the top-40 in Germany (#34) and France (#36). The Sound Loaded album, released in November of that year, went to #4 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over two million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2001, "She Bangs" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, losing to Sting for his forgotten album track "She Walks This Earth". Ricky and this album will return to the series.

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There was also a Spanish-language version of "She Bangs" released. This version topped Billboard's Hot Latin Songs for a week and the Tropical Airplay list for five weeks. At the Latin Grammy Awards, Ricky won the trophy for Best Music Video...

 

 Ricky premiered the song on MTV's Total Request Live show...

Next up, in London in a music festival...

Martin's version of "She Bangs" got eclipsed in 2004 when William Hung, an aspiring if not talented contestant on American Idol, became the target of scorn from Simon Cowell, but inspired such a viral reaction in America that an album built around it, Inspiration, went to #34 on the Billboard 200 sales chart...

 

 and lastly, back to Ricky at the Festival De Vina del Mar in Chile in 2014...

Up tomorrow: Irish pop singer can't keep her mouth shut.