In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing each single #1 single within the historical past of the Billboard Hot 100, beginning with the chart’s starting, in 1958, and dealing my manner up into the current. Book Bonus Beat: The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music.
Every night time can’t be a superb night time. We know this. In 2009, although, the Black Eyed Peas had an entire lot of fine nights. With two back-to-back smashes, the LA group, onetime footnotes within the nice saga of late-’90s backpack rap, held the highest of the Billboard Hot 100 for 26 consecutive weeks — absolutely half of the 12 months. That’s 182 good nights in a row.
Nobody had ever pulled off a chart feat fairly like that earlier than the Black Eyed Peas. In 1994, when Boyz II Men went back-to-back with “I’ll Make Love To You” and “On Bended Knee,” their accomplishment appeared absurd and not possible. We would by no means see something like this once more, till we did. The Black Eyed Peas took Boyz II Men’s cumulative 20-week whole, and so they simply casually piled one other month and a half on high of it. In that second, BEP successfully broke pop music. If you have been anybody else attempting to make a #1 hit in 2009, you have been fucked.
“Boom Boom Pow,” the primary of these hits, was a wierd snapshot of its second, a bleepy laptop freakout that synthesized just a few years of dance-music traits into one gallingly dumb however memorable bundle. The second of these hits went even larger, and it by no means went away. To at the present time, “I Gotta Feeling” stays inescapable at youngsters’ dances, picnics, weddings — anyplace that somebody may have to evoke hedonistic emotions in essentially the most healthful contexts. “I Gotta Feeling” is an unfailingly chipper brainworm, a relentless four-minute sugar-rush that hardly bothers to think about the concept that tonight may not be a superb night time. It’s a superb track. I prefer it.
Will.i.am, the principal architect of this heedlessly optimistic head-knocker, has at all times insisted that he and his group made one thing highly effective and complex with “I Gotta Feeling.” In 2010, Will instructed Rolling Stone, “What is the easiest emotion to act? Anger. What is the hardest? Joy. That’s ’cause joy is complex. It’s somber, sad, happy, heartbroken, hopeful — it’s all these emotions in one. What you hear in ‘I Gotta Feeling’? To me, that’s joy. You’re in pain, but tonight’s going to be a good night.”
The origins of “I Gotta Feeling” are buried in several individuals’s makes an attempt to mythologize themselves. In that Rolling Stone article, will.i.am claims that he wrote the track after watching Barack Obama’s inauguration. Will had campaigned laborious for Obama, orchestrating the viral-but-unlistenable marketing campaign track “Yes We Can.” Will says that he stood in entrance of the Lincoln Memorial on inauguration day, fascinated with his life and his grandmother, after which he got here up with “I Gotta Feeling” an hour later. That’s a enjoyable story, however I don’t consider him for a second.
Interscope boss Jimmy Iovine has mentioned that can.i.am had a distinct inspiration in thoughts. Iovine introduced Will in to co-produce “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight,” a extremely horrible single that U2, a bunch who’s been on this column a few occasions, launched in 2009. (“I’ll Go Crazy” didn’t make the Hot 100.) At the time, Iovine mentioned, “I sent will.i.am over to the studio to do some remixes on ‘I’ll Go Crazy.’ He works on them for two weeks, comes back and writes ‘I Gotta Feeling.’… The chords are U2 chords, 100%. Will even told them.”
Maybe will.i.am actually was considering of Obama when he got here up with “I Gotta Feeling.” There’s a superb likelihood that he was considering of U2, too. (He namedrops Bono within the Rolling Stone story: “Bono said, ‘Our music gets to people closer than you ever can be: You’re in their ears, they put us in their head.’ That changed my whole view on things.” I’m attempting actually laborious to keep away from imagining a Bono/will.i.am dialog as a result of I simply don’t want that mess in my head.) When will.i.am got here up with the monitor, although, he was positively considering of the European dance music that he’d come to like. The uneven, staccato artificial guitar chards on “I Gotta Feeling” sound nearly precisely like those that Will’s “I Gotta Feeling” collaborator, the French dance producer David Guetta, used on his personal 2007 single “Love Is Gone.” (“Love Is Gone” was Guetta’s first Hot 100 hit; it peaked at #98.)
David Guetta launched his first single in 1990, however his profession didn’t take off till the early ’00s, when he attached with American singer Chris Willis and began cranking out a collection of anthemic electro-house singles. Guetta was by no means a cool-kid dance producer. He had not one of the cachet or mystique of fellow Frenchies like Daft Punk and Justice. But when will.i.am began pushing the Black Eyes Peas’ sound extra towards big-room dance music, Guetta was one of many first individuals he contacted. Guetta had the precise form of cheese that the Black Eyed Peas wanted. He despatched Will some tracks, and so they labored collectively in each LA and Paris. Guetta and his common collaborator Frédéric Riesterer, who glided by the title Fred Risto, co-produced a few songs on the Black Eyed Peas’ album The E.N.D. “I Gotta Feeling” was the massive one.
David Guetta and Fred Risto are each listed as songwriters on “I Gotta Feeling,” however there’s nothing within the credit a few “Love Is Gone” pattern. Those hammering in-the-red chords reappear on the “I Gotta Feeling” intro, however the tone is all totally different. On the Black Eyed Peas track, there’s one other synth buzzing beneath, imitating the children of swelling strings that you just may affiliate with an inspirational film second. When the vocals are available, we additionally get some thrumming guitars, a bit paying homage to what bands like Interpol and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have been doing within the early ’00s. Max Martin and Dr. Luke introduced that sound into the pop mainstream with Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” nevertheless it’s not just like the indie bands invented that type; perhaps these are the U2 chords that Jimmy Iovine was speaking about.
Before we even get to the vocals, then, “I Gotta Feeling” is a wierd hybrid beast. It’s obtained electro keyboards, rock guitars, vaguely hopeful strings. (I don’t know what number of of these sounds come from precise devices, nevertheless it doesn’t actually matter.) What we don’t get is something that implies precise rap music. The Black Eyed Peas have been evidently previous that. On “I Gotta Feeling,” the totally different BEP members don’t take turns rapping verses. Instead, all of them chant collectively, their co-mingled voices suggesting the form of mass catharsis that the track badly desires to evoke.
Early on, they sound wistful. Will.i.am sings that tonight’s gonna be a superb night time, however he sounds hesitant, perhaps a bit unhappy. Quickly, although, the track builds. More voices are available, and so do kickdrums and handclaps. Fergie does her diva-wailing factor. Someone contributes wordless woo-hoos. Then, lastly, the beat drops, and so they’re all yelling collectively: “Tonight’s the night! Let’s live it up! I got my money! Let’s spend it up!” When these voices come collectively, they construct in confidence and certainty. They begin to sound a bit of safer after they insist that tonight’s gonna be a superb night time.
“I Gotta Feeling” has extraordinarily simplistic nursery-rhyme lyrics, and that’s the very first thing that individuals point out after they make enjoyable of the track. People make a lot of enjoyable of this track. Anything this overwhelmingly large is certain for backlash, and as you’ll see on the backside of this column, “I Gotta Feeling” blocked some much-worthier songs from reaching the #1 spot. And sure, there are some gallingly dumb bits in there. It must be sufficient for the Black Eyed Peas to pledge to celebration daily, puh-puh-puh-party daily. They shouldn’t want to call all the times off the week. That’s an excessive amount of. We get it.
But the simplicity of “I Gotta Feeling” is the purpose. It’s a track about banishing doubts out of your thoughts, psyching your self up, keen your self to consider that tonight will probably be a superb night time. I’m wondering if the group used the phrase “Gotta” within the title deliberately, as some form of sign. “Gotta” normally means “got to,” as in “must.” The phrase “I Must Feeling” is not sensible. The Black Eyed Peas are merely telling us that they have a sense, however “I Got A Feeling” simply wouldn’t look the identical. “I Have A Feeling” could be a fucking catastrophe. Grammar is for chumps, anyway. If you’re conveying that means, making your self understood, you then’re utilizing language appropriately. Maybe that’s what BEP are telling us with that title. Maybe they’re asserting that the foundations don’t apply, that we must always cease overthinking issues. Or perhaps it was only a typo that no one corrected. I don’t know.
The good night time of “I Gotta Feeling” by no means arrives. The track has its personal peaks and valleys, its buildups and its moments of catharsis. But no one ever sings that they’re now having a superb night time. Instead, they’re merely speaking about all of the issues that they intend to do. They’ll exit and smash it, like oh my god. They’ll bounce off that couch. They’ll kick it off. They’ll have a ball in the event that they get down and exit and simply lose all of it. They’ll paint the city, shut it down, burn the roof, after which they’ll do it once more. It’s all anticipation. “I Gotta Feeling” is much less a track about partying, extra a track about mentally making ready your self to celebration.
The sound of “I Gotta Feeling” will not be pure pleasure, although that’s in there. It’s obtained a nervous undercurrent — realizing that perhaps it gained’t be a superb night time after which making an attempt to banish that thought out of your head. Fergie briefly acknowledges it — “I feel stressed out, I wanna let it go” — however she doesn’t let herself dwell. I feel that unstated hesitance is an enormous purpose that “I Gotta Feeling” was capable of resonate the best way that it did. The track’s feeling will not be not sheer exhilaration; it’s one thing a bit of extra uneasy than that.
Look: Maybe I’m over-analyzing this goofy-ass track that, from a sure angle, is about not over-analyzing something. “I Gotta Feeling” will get on lots of people’s nerves as a result of it’s so senseless, so repetitive. The choruses sound like choruses, and the verses additionally sound like choruses. If you’re in search of any form of depth, you need to actually stretch. (I actually don’t hear depth in “I Gotta Feeling.” I hear emotional resonance, which isn’t the identical factor.) I feel “I Gotta Feeling” works in addition to it does partly as a result of it strikes away from every little thing that the Black Eyed Peas had performed as much as that second. Will.i.am was at all times a reasonably dangerous rapper, however “I Gotta Feeling” doesn’t actually require him to rap. Instead, he simply has to shout party-life mantras as loud as he can. It’s the canniest factor that he might’ve performed.
“I Gotta Feeling” additionally has hooks for days. It’s dumb and relentless like a Ramones track, and I imply that as reward. The track was additionally marketed in a manner that made it inescapable. The Black Eyed Peas did every little thing that they may to push “I Gotta Feeling” into individuals’s faces. The video confirmed an idealized Hollywood trash-culture celebration, and it additionally put Fergie in lingerie as a lot as potential. The group additionally carried out the track in a Target business, successfully promoting themselves.
When “I Gotta Feeling” was blowing up, the Black Eyed Peas didn’t actually say no to something. There was, as an illustration, the promo for the upcoming CBS fall lineup — “I Gotta Feeling” soundtracking all these clips of The Mentalist and The Big Bang Theory and all the varied CSI offshoots.
And then there was the efficiency on the kickoff celebration for the twenty fourth season of Oprah. Oprah Winfrey gasped and took cell-phone movies whereas the group carried out in downtown Chicago, switching up their lyrics to replicate the second: “Jump off that sofa! Keep watching… Oprah!” (Maybe that’s a Tom Cruise reference, nevertheless it appears to indicate that you just’re supposed to look at Oprah whereas standing up, which no one has ever voluntarily performed within the historical past of the world.) While the group carried out, 1000’s of rictus-grinning extras did a type of painstakingly choreographed flashmob dances — a postcard from that peak period of pressured cheerfulness.
The Black Eyed Peas did that Oprah efficiency in September 2009, two months after “I Gotta Feeling” changed “Boom Boom Pow” at #1. That day, the track was nonetheless on high, and it might stay on high for an additional month and a half. After a sure level, even these of us who appreciated “I Gotta Feeling” needed to admit that the track’s fixed presence had develop into oppressive. The Black Eyed Peas merely couldn’t keep that momentum perpetually. The crash was inevitable. Maybe they realized that they have been getting corny, that no one would ever take them critically once more. Maybe they knew that they merely needed to journey that second for all it was value, since there wouldn’t be one other one. The group’s “I Gotta Feeling” follow-up was the comparatively downbeat “Meet Me Halfway,” a track that no one thinks about anymore. (“Meet Me Halfway” peaked at #7. It’s a 3.)
David Guetta arguably obtained an even bigger increase out of “I Gotta Feeling” than the Black Eyed Peas did. When that track crashed the charts, America all of a sudden realized its urge for food for Guetta’s shamelessly hooky big-room EDM. Later that 12 months, Guetta teamed up with Akon, an artist who’s been on this column just a few occasions, on the only “Sexy Bitch.” It grew to become Guetta’s first main American hit as lead artist. (“Sexy Bitch” peaked at #5. It’s a 5.)
In the years that adopted, Guetta teamed up with large pop stars and made larger hits, turning himself right into a model title and forcefully rejecting the archetype of the faceless, nameless dance producer. In 2011, Guetta made it to #4 along with his Usher collab “Without You” and along with his Nicki Minaj collab “Turn Me On.” (“Without You” is a 5. “Turn Me On” is a 3.) Long after his model of EDM has light from the American mainstream, Guetta is nonetheless able to scoring an out-of-nowhere freak hit, so long as he picks the proper apparent pattern. That’s what he did earlier this 12 months, when his Eiffel 65-jacking Bebe Rexha collab “I’m Good (Blue)” surfed a TikTook wave all the best way to a different #4 peak. (It’s a 7. Scoff all you need. I do know I’m proper. Nobody can inform me shit.)
The Black Eyed Peas have additionally endured, in their very own manner. “I Gotta Feeling” stays their greatest hit, nevertheless it was not their final. It gained’t even be the final time we see the Black Eyed Peas on this column. They’ll be again.
GRADE: 8/10