Band Charts Charlie Puth See You Again
Why Is Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth's "See You Again" No. 1?
Still from the video for "Run into You Again"
"Every film in every cinema is about decease," a wise homo in one case said. "Death sells."
Of grade, Spinal Tap managing director Ian Organized religion was maxim this about an album with a none-more than-blackness embrace, featuring songs with titles like "Hell Hole." But every bit history has shown fourth dimension and once more, if you combine decease with a hopeful melody, music fans will flock to information technology in large numbers. Bring that elegiac tune to motion picture screens, and information technology'south a commercial juggernaut. (That Ian—he may non take fussed over the deviation betwixt inches and anxiety, but when it came to selling records, the man was a seer.)
Expiry and movie house are the key reasons "Come across Y'all Again" past Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth is the No. 1 vocal on Billboard'due south flagship Hot 100 chart. In improver to spending a second week on tiptop hither in America (a streak it'due south probable to extend), "See" is No. one in more than than a dozen countries worldwide, mirroring the global blockbuster flick that birthed the song, Furious 7. Billion-dollar-generating movies don't ever spawn globe-conquering No. 1 hits. (Does anybody retrieve "I See You (Theme from Avatar)" past Leona Lewis?) But Khalifa's and Puth's maudlin piano-and-rap ballad is not just riding the Furious box-role wave. Information technology'south serving as a take-domicile souvenir of the movie'south poignant farewell to late actor Paul Walker.
Walker, a co-atomic number 82 in six of the seven Fast and Furious movies, is given a long sendoff at the close of Furious 7. The Lifetime-aqueduct-worthy sequence between Walker and costar Vin Diesel is captured, virtually in toto, in the "Run across You Once more" music video. One doesn't typically go to a muscle-car movie for a good cry, but a large reason Furious 7 is not just a blockbuster but the biggest movie in the franchise to engagement is that ending: Diesel has compared the emotional finale, not without reason, to Titanic, and "Run across You Again" is its "My Heart Will Go On"—a song straight connected to the picture's heartrending denouement that the public, in turn, decides it must own.
That'southward certainly how the song became such a boom hither in America—Billboard reports that consumers got out ahead of radio programmers. The vocal started at the Hot 100'south lowest rung in late March, but immediately after Furious seven hitting U.S. screens in early on April, "Come across" made a huge bound into the Top 10, fueled past digital downloads. After the movie had been in theaters more than a calendar week, those sales virtually tripled—"See" shifted nearly a half-million downloads in a week, the highest total for a song since Taylor Swift's "Bare Space" tardily last year—and the April vi premiere of the "See" music video generated an center-popping 25 million weekly YouTube views. Those two data points alone made the song's ascension to the penthouse a foregone conclusion, fifty-fifty every bit the song was but starting to generate airplay.
"See You Again" is now dominating multiple Billboard charts. None of the prior Fast and Furious movies generated a hitting soundtrack anthology, simply last week the Furious seven soundtrack topped the Billboard 200 anthology chart, largely because of "See." Over on the Hot 100, "See" didn't just motor into the top slot—it motorcar-jumped from No. ten to the tiptop. With that out-of-nowhere move, Wiz and Puth became giant-killers: "See" ejected "Uptown Funk!" past Marker Ronson and Bruno Mars afterwards an epic chart-topping run, one that other hits this winter proved unable to overcome—singles by Hozier, Ed Sheeran, and Maroon 5 all stalled at No. 2.
(Seriously, for those wondering why this is my starting time "Why Is This Song No. 1?" mail since early January, it's because "Uptown Funk!" wound upwardly sitting in Billboard's top slot for more than than 3 months. Before "Run across You Over again" came barreling in, at that place was speculation that "Funk!" might outlast "I Sugariness Day," Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's melisma-rific 1995–96 single that holds the all-time tape with 16 weeks at No. one. Instead, with xiv weeks on acme, "Funk!" settles into a seven-way tie for 2nd identify in the annals of Hot 100 history. I like "Uptown Funk!" simply man—that'due south the last fourth dimension I wish aloud for a song to "coating every corner of the radio." Fourteen weeks was a little much, America.)
Given all of the in a higher place data points—the moving picture connection, the box office, the outpouring of emotion over the untimely death of Walker—you might call up information technology doesn't matter what "See You lot Over again" sounds similar. But that sells the song short. What makes "Run into" a schlock bout de forcefulness—not a great or even a very adept song, but a showcase of craft—is the savvy way information technology takes the feeling surrounding a specific pop-culture event and expands it into all-purpose message about loss. With its lyrics nearly "family unit," its unsubtle allusions to an afterlife ("let the light guide your way … I'll tell you all about it when I come across you lot once more"), and the mournful tune from featured performer Puth—an ivory-tinkling, falsetto-singing hybrid of Ben Folds and Adam Levine—"See You Again" fulfills the basic human impulse to plow tragedy and loss into kitsch. It's the commemorative nine/xi golf ball or blackness-velvet Elvis painting of 2015 hits.
Hip-hop, in detail, has a decades-long history of mourning the dead, often movingly. Equally a pour-one-out anthem led by a rapper, "Come across You Again" has at to the lowest degree two obvious antecedents amidst prior U.S. chart-toppers, both of them mid-'90s singles: "Tha Crossroads" past Cleveland rap troupe Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, and "I'll Be Missing You" by Sean Combs aka Puff Daddy (as he was known then) with Faith Evans and 112. The former, an 8-week No. 1 in the spring of 1996, commemorated several of the Bones' fallen street comrades but also NWA rapper Eazy-E, who signed the group to his Ruthless label before dying of AIDS in 1995. The latter, which spent 11 weeks—nearly all of summertime 1997—atop the Hot 100, found Puffy riding a sample of the Police's "Every Jiff You lot Take" to commemorate his mentorship and friendship with the simply-deceased Christopher Wallace, aka The Notorious B.I.G.
It'south tempting to connect "See You Again" to these expressionless-homies chestnuts. What they all have in common is a sweetness, almost churchy approach to melody: the Os Thugs rhyming in "Crossroads" nearly how they "pray, every day, every day"; widow Faith Evans singing mournfully on "Missing," with a gospel ache, for her former hubby; the hymn-like piano lines that anchor "See." Only besides the fact that Paul Walker, as a song honoree, makes a foreign analog to Eazy-E or Biggie (I'thou having a hard time picturing anyone pouring out a 40-oz. for a genre-movie actor), the electric current striking is as well much less hip-hop-centric than its predecessors. "Crossroads" and "Missing" were both unabashedly corny and popular-friendly, but at their cadre they were about hip-hop'southward backstory—its culture, its beefs, its self-subversive impulses. "See You Again" is almost decease in the abstruse, and specifically, information technology's about the death of a glory. Among mid-to-late '90s hits (a big catamenia for death on the Hot 100), "See" is much closer to Elton John's "Candle in the Air current 1997"—Diana, Princess of Wales, remains the ultimate celebrity angel—or the same 1998 smash "My Centre Will Go On" past Celine Dion, the quintessential mourn-you-till-I-join-you pop song.
Another reason "See You Again" feels less tied to the lineage of hip-hop elegies is the goose egg-like presence of its nominal lead performer, Wiz Khalifa. Give the man credit: It's hard in the 2010s for a rapper, any rapper, to acme the pop-and-dance-centric Hot 100, and in the last five years Khalifa has washed it twice. Wiz showtime rang the bell with "Black and Yellow," a celebration of his Pittsburgh hometown that spent a single calendar week at No. 1 in Feb 2011 thank you to the Steelers reaching Super Bowl XLV. Since then, Khalifa has built a reputation as the go-to stoner rapper and a solid career in hip-hop's 2nd tier; he'due south scored a couple more than Top 10 hits and, final year, his beginning No. ane album, Blacc Hollywood.
At present, with "Run into You Again," Wiz is the first rapper to front a Hot 100 chart-topper since Eminem did information technology with "The Monster" in late 2013; and the commencement rapper of color to exercise and so since Flo Rida scored a No. 1 with "Whistle" in summer 2012. The latter MC makes for a particularly apt comparison—in much of his oeuvre but especially on "Encounter," Khalifa more than closely resembles radio-rappers like Flo Rida (whom Jody Rosen memorably called "a huge hitmaker with no discernable charisma") or the pop-centric B.o.B. than, say, Kendrick Lamar or J. Cole. Khalifa's biggest hits tend to do better on the Hot 100 than on Billboard'south R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay nautical chart. And both of his two pop nautical chart-toppers have been propelled past massive cultural X-factors—the Super Bowl with "Black and Xanthous," a boom moving-picture show with "Run across." He may non want to be chosen a "stoner rapper" anymore, only Khalifa may have to settle for the title of "outcome rapper."
Still from the video for "Run across You Again"
Khalifa does go a few of the song's almost memorable lines, including the refrain, "How could we not talk about family when family unit's all that we got?" and the picture-recalling "… now you gonna be with me for the concluding ride." Only Charlie Puth's piano-and-vocal segments are given a more than primal showcase in the mix—his loftier-pitched "Oo-oo-OOH-oo-OOH" is arguably the song's most memorable hook—and serve as the core of the its chart-acquisition prowess. Indeed, in that location's already a rap-free mix of "See You Again" that focuses on Puth'south segments and excises Khalifa, not different the popular radio edit of 2013's "Holy Grail" that centered on guest vocalist Justin Timberlake instead of Jay Z. Given recent radio tendencies, don't be surprised if the all-Puth version of "See" is the ane yous hear months from at present on adult-contemporary stations—more than 6 years after Jay Z'southward "Empire State of Listen" was a hit, I'm yet hearing the Alicia Keys–only mix in the bread aisle.
This brings up the question of how long a shadow "See Yous Again" will have after 2015, when the public's warm fuzzies over Paul Walker fade and the offset Walker-less flick—Fast 8, or Ocho Furious, or whatever it's chosen—is in theaters. The song may well spend months atop the Hot 100 this year, but that doesn't guarantee we'll be hearing this on the radio in 2019.
In and of themselves, death-related blockbuster songs have pocket-size lifespans. "Tha Crossroads" receives scant recurrent radio play, and "I'll Be Missing Yous," despite spending more than weeks at No. i than "Every Breath Yous Have," certainly hasn't had the latter's gargantuan footprint. Fifty-fifty Elton'due south Diana tribute—reportedly one of the 2 biggest-selling singles of all time, after "White Christmas"—receives few spins today. On the other hand, we are withal living in a "My Heart Will Go On" world; within three notes of that opening tin whistle, if y'all're not running screaming from the room, you lot are probably swooning with memories of Jack and Rose.
And then what is "See You Again," legacy-wise—a death song or a movie song? 5 years from at present, if the sound of Charlie Puth's falsetto makes you motion-picture show two cars diverging, Robert Frost–mode, we'll have to refine Ian Religion'due south theory: Death sells … simply movie death is immortal.
Read more than from Why Is This Song No. 1?:
- "Uptown Funk" Is to R&B What "Smells Like Teen Spirit" Was to Punk
- Taylor Swift May Never Be This Popular Again. Here's Why.
Source: https://slate.com/culture/2015/04/wiz-khalifa-and-charlie-puths-see-you-again-is-no-1-on-the-billboard-hot-100-chart-why-the-history-of-hip-hop-elegies.html
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