Listening to "Bird" right now. No memory of this one, but it's very Neo Soul in the Erykah Badu mold. Not surprised Nelly came out of that movement - her 3rd album is straight up late 2000's dance pop, but it's also different (less annoying) than most of its peers.
Just played this one on YouTube. Now I remember it. Didn't a lot of network TV coverage of 9/11 memorials and such end up using this? I seem to recall that.
Hits packages. Whatever happened to those? They don't seem to do those anymore, despite the fact there's a bunch of artists that could certainly have one by now.
Now that streaming is much bigger than album sales, the concept of a Taylor Swift or Rihanna Greatest Hits cd isn't necessarily as enticing as it would've been 20 years ago because with people listening to music on their phone or whatever playlist, they can listen to their fave songs by the artist in question without a compilation putting it on cd for them.
And now, we go to the first of a new year . . . #882 (1st of 2002): "Always On Time" by Ja Rule Featuring Ashanti (#1 for 2 weeks - February 23-March 2, 2002) Second time for Mr. Rule, but the first for yet another of those one-name singers George Carlin used to complain about. As for the lass, I've long heard of her, but never really heard this until now. Was also #1 for the same two-week period on the Billboard airplay chart, but could only get up to #5 in Radio & Records. In the UK, it peaked at #6; in the two weeks of this being Numero Uno here, those at the summit across the pond included "World Of Our Own" by Westlife.
Ashanti would be the hottest star in pop for the next couple months and then fall off a cliff. Around this time she would be the first artist since Bee Gees to have three songs in the top 10 at once
Ja Rule Featuring Ashanti - Always On Time At last...I knew this one straight away!!! Thumbs up here I like this one. 4/5
Another dirge. Some nice production touches. 4 minutes long, feels like 10, runs out of ideas after 2. Can't imagine why. Seems entirely generic.
She benefited from chart technicalities because on top of her lead tracks, she was on tons of other tracks as a guest which was added to her chart tallies. She actually is uncredited as a vocalist on yet another #1 very soon which technically will give her four top 10s at once. Within a year she'll be old news but we will see her as a villain in Buffy's last season. She was basically just a placeholder between the death of Aaliyah and the solo emergence of that most iconic of Destiny's Child members.
"Always On Time" by Ja Rule Featuring Ashanti It's the first time I've seen the Music Video to this. I remember people I know being into this when released, mostly older Teenagers I knew. I would have been 14 when this came out, and my memory of it is being in the Theatre of my School and one of the 'Popular guys' that all the girls liked was doing something with sound or lighting in the booth. This song was on and there was this girl crying and she was like 'We used to listen to that song together'. And thinking of that line from that last #1, the Usher song 'Geez, "U got it bad!"' lol. I really like that guitar loop! I feel like I remember a lot of songs with melodic and catchy Choruses with a soft, cool female vocal, around this time. I'm surprised J-Lo didn't rob this one too from the poor Gal! lol. I mostly knew of Ja Rule from the Soundtrack to the film The Fast and the Furious. Which most were disappointed in as it featured hardly any music from the movie, and was more like a concept album curated by Ja Rule. Most of my friends older siblings had it and I heard parts of it often.
"Always On Time" - Ja Rule Featuring Ashanti I remember this track, barely. 31 year old me was simply indifferent about what was popular in 2002. There are a few #1's that are unavoidably catchy but there's also a whole lot of "meh". This is that. 3/5
Always on Time I kind of like this one. The hook is memorable. I actually have Ashanti's CD, because a couple of her other hits I also kind of liked, and pickings on the charts were starting to get very slim. I was surprised when she came out of nowhere to have three simultaneous top 10 hits, then disappeared almost as quickly.
I will never understand, out of all the massively talented artists that exist out there, why Ja Rule had the career that he did. He can’t sing, and as a rapper he’s… “So stop the complaints and drop the order restraints, Our s*x life's a game, so back me down in the paint” “I got two or three h*es for every V, And I keep 'em drugged up off that ecstasy I'm a playground legend like Kirkland, Pee Wee” …Bad! As a Rapper he’s bad, he’s boring, pathetic and most of all, creepy! His voices creepy. His lyrics are creepy. And that’s just talking about this one song, the catalog has worse. Nope, can’t defend it. Nope nope nope. At least 50 had good production and a mildly interesting voice, Ja has neither. This might be my least favorite #1 of the decade.
To be fair Ja's reign was short lived. Jay-Z and Eminem never stopped being A list but Ja's only released one album in the last 18 years, which slayed the charts at #197.
#882 (1st of 2002): "Always On Time" by Ja Rule Featuring Ashanti (#1 for 2 weeks - February 23-March 2, 2002) *Snort* Does anything say "2002" more than this power couple? I felt bad for doing so but always called her Ash*tti. My guess is that the Aaliyah-shaped void in the charts is what allowed her to flourish if only for a hot (100) minute. As for Ja Drool, don't feel bad for him, he has a stellar career planning music festivals in his future...
As an older gent....I seem to be in a ever decreasing circle of people who like some of these 'modern' #1's........
You're not alone in that reality and it's worth an attempt at some kind of objective explanation. Is it pop music itself or is it a change in our brains which are very close in proximity to our ears? As we get older do we get set in our ways or have our tastes simply been refined after decades of input? If Top 40 Pop truly is the music of youth, do we simply become too old to appreciate it? Did all of the downloading and piracy change the industry's business model to the point where hit formulas and a focus on product versus art takes hold and the disappearing work of A&R departments, which we had become so accustomed to, lead to nothing but generic copycat trending? Was it us or was it them? I've been asking myself questions like this for a long time as I notice how at this point in the timeline I drift away from Top 40. It's really not a quitting cold turkey kind of thing or some kind of rebellion against radio. I simply struggle to find top 10 singles that appeal to me like they were just 5 years previous. In 2002 I'm still consuming new releases, just not in the genres that were dominating the charts. In the 80's and early 90's my tastes were quite in tune with Billboard. In the 2000's it's no longer true. It's interesting stuff.
I think those of us who are passionate about music make strong bonds with our favorite artists/styles in our formative years. As we get older, it gets harder to recreate that connection with new artists/styles, especially if they deviate significantly from - or, God forbid, replace - our favorite artists/styles from our era. Nothing will top the high of nineties country for me, for example, and I'd still rather hear new music from those artists than from most who have come along since. The newer ones that I do like tend to be heavily influenced by my favorite artists from that era. And that's country music, which until pretty recently was designed with older listeners in mind. Pop/rock/hip-hop have traditionally been the sounds of youth anyway. I'm not sure that's still the case with rock, but with pop and hip-hop, it definitely still is,
You make a good point. I try to check out all genres and eras but "home" will always be 80s and 90s, the music I grew up with, the artists I watched on MTV when that meant something. (Spoiler warning, jumping ahead) I dislike a lot of modern tropes in mainstream top 40 music, predominantly the autotuned mumbling that has ruined hip hop but I accept I'm not the target demo. Yet in the past year I've enjoyed big hits by Taylor Swift, Lizzo, Beyonce, Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus we'll even cover because they go #1 and loads of other stuff too, so its not like I hate new pop music by any stretch. Regarding "youth", rock stopped being a youth movement when the media and labels decided to stop trying to push new music. Why try to make White Reaper or Rival Sons happen when you can sell Nirvana and Metallica shirts at Hot Topic and continue reaping rewards from proven artists instead of letting newer artists get their shot? This is why rock's faded while hip hop, pop and country continue to thrive, they don't completely dwell on the past but realize there's a present and future as well. Mainstream rock radio would rather play 30 year old Nirvana than push new acts.
I wonder if it's a chicken/egg thing. Did the youth move on from rock because the labels/radio stopped pushing new artists, or did labels/radio stop pushing new rock acts because the youth audience shows far less interest in rock than in other formats? The last time a rock album felt especially relevant was Green Day's American Idiot, and that was a long time ago at this point.
