Songoftheday 08/14/24 - Up in the club with my homies, tryna get a little V-I keep it down on the low-key

 

 

"Yeah!" - Usher featuring Lil' Jon & Ludacris

from the album Confessions (2004)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (twelve weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 41

 

Today's song comes from R&B singer Usher, whose third album 8701 had spun off three huge hits in 2001 and 2002 with "U Don't Need To Call" and two #1's on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 with "U Remind Me" and "U Got It Bad". In 2003, Usher recorded his follow-up album Confessions, which he then recorded even more tracks to try to find a suitable lead single (instead of the planned ballad "Burn"). For this he joined up with the "King of Crunk" (crunk - the style of hip-hop using spare electronic production and loud chunky synth chords), producer/rapper Lil' Jon, who on his own climbed to #2 on the Hot 100 in the autumn of 2003 with "Get Low". The pair also enlisted then-red-hot Atlanta rapper Ludacris, who had went all the way to #1 at the close of that year with "Stand Up!". Jon produed the result, "Yeah!" which was written by Jon and Luda with Sean Garrett and Patrick Smith. The lyrics have Usher out on a night on the town with his friends as his regular girlfriend is out of town. He comes across a captivating woman and tries to talk himself out of approaching her, but the devil on his shoulder is definitely winning the battle. The end result that we hear is only he gets to dancing with her on the floor, so that air of innocence is still there, but Jon's yelps of "Yeah" keep coming on. Ludacris' verse at the end is superfluous but does fit the groove and mood quite nicely, and his posturing is at least more swag-based. The production, dominated by the "crunk" synth chords anchoring the track, definitely is one of the most recognizable riffs of the decade, and it like a snake-charmer's flute to the dancefloor. With a flashy video, "Yeah!" became Usher's biggest success, reigning over the pop chart for three months...

"Yeah!" spent twelve weeks at #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 starting in February of 2004, the longest stay of that year, while taking eight weeks atop their R&B Singles chart. On the radio, the song led the Mainstream top-40 chart for three weeks and the Mainstream R&B list for eight, and peaked at #6 on the Dance Airplay chart and even popped on to the older-skewing Adult R&B station list at #33. (Surprising the club-friendly song never made Billboard's Dance Club Play tally). Internationally, the single was just as massive, topping the charts in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium (Wallonia), Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland, and reached the top ten in Belgium (#2 Flanders), Hungary (#2), Italy (#3), Sweden (#4), Romania (#5), Greece (#6), Croatia (#6), and Czechia (#8). The Confessions album, released initially in March of that year, spent nine weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 sales tally (with 219 weeks on the list), and eleven weeks atop the R&B Albums list, going on to selling over 14 million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2005, "Yeah!" won for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, and was nominated for the prestigious Record of the Year (his sole nom in that category so far), losing to the "sentimental ringer" "Here We Go Again" from the late Ray Charles and Grammy magnet Norah Jones. The Confessions album won for Best Contemporary R&B Album, and was also up for Album Of The Year, which again went to the late Charles for his posthumous Genius Loves Company set. 

Usher and the album will be back to the series many times over.

(10/10)

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Usher was already on top when he went on Conan O'Brien...

 

 

Here's Usher, Lil Jon, and Ludacris in concert to an absolutely wild audience...

Next up, a live studio version from 2011...

and lastly, at the Global Citizen charity mega-concert from Ghana...

Up tomorrow: This Idol winner has year-specific regrets.