Songoftheday 3/31/23 - I don't know why you care, he doesn't even know you're there...

 

 

"Girlfriend" - *NSYNC featuring Nelly

from the album Celebrity (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (four weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 17

 

Today's song comes from boy-band vocal group *NSYNC, who were at a precipitous point in their career in the begininng of the "naughties". Their fourth album Celebrity in 2001 sold close to two million (1.89 million) copies in just its first week, but at the expense of the record company holding back commercial releases of the first two radio singles, "Pop" and "Gone", both of which stalled in the top-20 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100, a relative failure for an act of that stature. 

For the third single, to salvage any momentum they had, Jive Records and *NSYNC doubled down, not only releasing it on CD single but including a new "remix" adding rapper Nelly, who had just come off another top-40 hit with "#1" at the close of the year. Produced by the Neptunes (Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo), who wrote the song with Justin Timberlake, "Girlfriend" was a blatant attempt to pander to the R&B world, with the Neptunes' skittering beat anchoring the boys making a play for another guy's girl. Justin and then JC Chasez take turns trying to convince her, while Chris Kirkpatrick, Lance Bass, and Joey Fatone play the usual backup "Supremes". Nelly's contribution as hypeman begins the single remix, and probably would have made and even better record with him alone. Nevertheless, the idea that you can buy a different version on CD single definitely rang with the fans, and the group found themselves with another top ten hit, not knowing (at least some of them) that it would be their last...

"Girlfriend" became *NSYNC's sixth single to make the top ten of Billboard's Hot 100 in April of 2002, while also climbing to #23 on the R&B Singles chart. On the radio, the song peaked at #5 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, #43 on the R&B Airplay list, and #6 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single spent a week at #1 in Canada, made the top ten in the United Kingdom (#2), Australia (#2), Germany (#6), Denmark (#6), the Netherlands (#8), and Ireland (#8). At the Grammy Awards in 2003, "Girlfriend" was nominated for Best Duo/Group Pop Performance with Vocals, losing to No Doubt for their horrid "Hey Baby".

After touring behind the Celebrity album, the group took a break, as would normally be the case. However, Timberlake and the team around the act were already plotting to spin off Justin as a solo act not just for one album, Justified which came out later that year, but for good once the popularity of the record shone through. A Greatest Hits album was put out in 2005 with a previously recorded but unreleased track, which went to #47 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, but they would never record another song together (they did rarely regroup for a couple special appearances at the start). Lance would eventually come out of the closet as gay, and he and Fatone and Kirkpatrick get together frequently for commercials and YouTube videos. JC Chasez tried to have a solo career, and will be back to the series, but that was shortlived. And of course Timberlake definitely will be back to the series, as will Nelly.

(5/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's the edit of the video without Nelly, which includes more of the drag race (not like RuPaul's)...

NSYNC and Nelly performed the song along with previous single "Gone" at the Grammys...

And lastly, from a televised concert in 2002...

SOTD will be back Monday with an oversized rapper questioning romance.