Beautiful Girls (Sean Kingston song)
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| “Beautiful Girls” | |||||
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| Single by Sean Kingston from the album Sean Kingston |
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| Released | May 26, 2007 | ||||
| Format | CD single, ringle | ||||
| Recorded | 2007 | ||||
| Genre | Pop/Reggae/R&B | ||||
| Length | 4:02 (album version) 3:43 (radio edit) |
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| Label | Epic, Geffen, Viacom, Koch | ||||
| Writer(s) | Kisean Anderson, Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller | ||||
| Producer | J.R. Rotem | ||||
| Certification | Platinum (RIANZ) Gold (ARIA) |
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| Sean Kingston singles chronology | |||||
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"Beautiful Girls" is a song by reggae-influenced musician Sean Kingston from his eponymous debut. The song samples the bassline from Ben E. King's classic "Stand by Me"[1] and uses digital pitch correction technology on the vocals. The song is about a boy who is suicidal over the failure of his relationship with a "beautiful girl". Certain radio stations play the censored version of the song, which replaces the word "suicidal" with "in denial". On MTV the word "suicidal" is completely removed with no replacement. On BET, Fuse and MuchMusic, "suicidal" was left intact. This song is also featured in the 2008 monster film Cloverfield, and on The CW's Gossip Girl.
Rapper Lil Mama and actors Lil' JJ and Marlon Wayans are featured in the music video.
This song was #86 on MTV Asia's list of Top 100 Hits of 2007.[2]
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[edit] Lyrics controversy
Due to the lyrics containing references to suicide, the track has been removed from many radio playlists including FM104 in Dublin, where thousands of complaints were phoned in on a late night chat show 'The Adrian Kennedy Phoneshow', and Wild 102 in Roseau, Minnesota. It was allegedly pulled from 2 FM although a spokesperson said the song is currently not on its playlist but could not confirm if it had been in the past.[3]FM104 replaced "suicidal" with "in denial", a change Sean Kingston made for the radio station.
[edit] Remixes
- Official Remix featuring Fabolous and Lil' Boosie
- Beautiful Girls Reply by JoJo
- Remix featuring Pitbull
- "Heartbreaker" Remix featuring Brick & Lace
- Remix featuring Angela Via
This song features two videos: the "regular" and the "Desperate Housewives" version.
[edit] Chart performance
The song benefited from extensive airplay before its digital release, reaching as high as #17 on the Hot 100. On July 24, "Beautiful Girls" was accidentally leaked onto the U.S. iTunes Store, two days before the planned release date. Within 24 hours after its official digital release on July 26, the song shot to the top spot of iTunes. The week after the song's digital release it hit number one on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs, debuting with 260,000 downloads in its first week (the second highest digital sales for a new song of 2007, only behind Rihanna's "Umbrella").[4] Kingston became the first artist born within the 1990s to top the Hot 100, beating rapper Soulja Boy to it by six weeks.[5] In the same week the song advanced from #23 to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, tying it with Brandy and Monica's "The Boy Is Mine" for the biggest singer-week upward movement to #1 on the Hot 100. It has has also gone on to occupy the top spot on the U.S. Hot 100 Airplay and the Canadian Hot 100. It remained on top of the UK Singles Chart for four weeks before being knocked off by the Sugababes' first single from their 5th studio album Change, "About You Now". The song ended 2007 as the years 15th biggest-selling single in the UK.[6]
On the official ARIA charts in Australia it debuted at #1, fell to #2 when Delta Goodrem's comeback single took the top spot. "Beautiful Girls" returned the next week and remained for a month before being replaced by Timbaland's "The Way I Are".
| Chart | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Argentina Top 40 Singles Chart | 1 |
| Australian ARIA Singles Chart | 1 |
| Australian ARIA Top 40 Digital Track Chart | 2 |
| Brazilian Hot 100 Singles[7] | 1 |
| Canadian Hot 100 | 1 |
| Croatian Singles Chart | 1 |
| Danish Download Chart | 2 |
| New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart | 1 |
| Polish National Top 50[8] | 3 |
| Portugal Singles Chart | 1 |
| French Singles Chart[9] | 2 |
| Indonesian Single Top [10] | 16 |
| Italian Singles Chart | 7 |
| EURO 200 Singles Chart[11] | 1 |
| Swedish top 60 | 3 |
| UK Singles Chart[12] | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs | 12 |
| U.S. Billboard Pop 100 | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Adult Top 40 | 39 |
| United World Chart | 3 |
| Irish Singles Chart | 1 |
| Swiss Top 100 | 11 |
| Czech IFPI Chart[13] | 9 |
| Hungarian Airplay Chart Top 40[14] | 2 |
[edit] Covers
A few months after Beautiful Girls was released in 2007, a new online video service called Votigo began a cover contest in which fans could submit covers of the song for a chance to get a call from Sean Kingston. After an online vote user Mallory Robbins won with an a cappella version of the song. Top honors also went to a rock cover of the song performed by the Ailan Christopher Project. Shortly afterwards, recording artist JoJo released a cover response version of the track which was released on MySpace, however will not be featured on her upcoming album. Chris Moyles also released a parody cover, however it was about the song describing how bad it was in his opinion.
The Plain White T's, whose song was knocked out of the charts by this one, did a cover version for Yahoo Music. Lead vocalist Tom Higgenson says that the group "started covering it as a joke almost. We started learning it because we were number one for a few weeks and then we got knocked out of the number one spot by Sean Kingston, by this song. It's kind of like an ode to Sean."[15] To close out the song guitarist Mike Retondo breaks into the chorus of Stand By Me, a nod to the fact that that song's bassline is used in Beautiful Girls.
Teddy Geiger covered the song on his 2007 tour, due to popularity a recorded version of the song will be featured as a bonus track on the iTunes version of his upcoming CD "The March".
Jesse McCartney covered Beautiful Girls during his Right Where You Want Me tour.
David Archuleta briefly sang the chorus of the song at the end of his May 6, 2008 performance on the U.S. TV show American Idol. He was singing Ben E. King's original Stand By Me song.
[edit] Parodies
- Chris Moyles and Comedy Dave from BBC Radio 1 have produced a popular parody, Sean Krapston - A Suicidal song.[16]
- Kel Mitchell has produced a song on his MySpace called "Scariest Girl".
[edit] References
- ^ Songfacts. "Beautiful Girls" Songfacts. Retrieved 2008-1-10
- ^ MTV Asia. "Top 100 Hits List". Retrieved 2007-12-27
- ^ Independent.ie - Station bans hit song about suicide (September 21, 2007) .
- ^ BillBoard.com - Kingston Has 'Beautiful' View Atop Revamped Hot 100 (August 2, 2007)
- ^ Breaking Music News - Music Business Information - Music Industry Sales
- ^ BBC Music. "Top 40 Singles of the Year 2007 ". Retrieved 2007-12-30
- ^ Brazilian Hot 100 Singles Chart
- ^ Polish Singles Chart
- ^ French Top 100
- ^ Official Indonesian Single Top
- ^ EURO 200 Singles Chart
- ^ UK Top 40
- ^ Čns Ifpi
- ^ mahasz.hu - Slágerlisták
- ^ Yahoo Music - Beautiful Girls: Pepsi Smash Exclusive Cover Art by Plain White T's. Retrieved on 2008-02-28.
- ^ Download of Sean Krapston - A Suicidal song
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