Slow-Motion Smash: How Pink Got Her “Hand” Back
Anyone who watches the pop charts these days can be forgiven for feeling whiplashed. Not since the ’60s have so many songs yo-yo’d up and down the Billboard Hot 100, as consumers flock to iTunes’ latest hits and then move on to the next thing. The 99-cent digital single is to the ’00s economy what the 45 was to the age when Beatles and Supremes roamed the earth: an insta-indicator of pop whim. “Can’t Buy Me Love,” meet “This Is Why I’m Hot.”
That makes it hard nowadays to score a hit the ’70s-’80s-’90s way: earning it. Pop hits don’t unfold anymore, they explode. Which makes a couple of hits closing in on the pop Top 10 right now special.
Pink had to know she was asking for ironic headlines a year ago when she titled an album I’m Not Dead. But coming off a flop album, Try This (2003), that followed a quintuple-platinum smash, M!sundaztood (2001), had placed a rather large chip on her shoulder. Last spring, Dead‘s first single, the buzzy, Paris-and-Lindsay-hating “Stupid Girls,” followed the iTunes trajectory and slammed onto the charts quickly, peaked just outside the top 10, then died within a couple of months, taking Pink’s CD down with it. Nary a peep was heard from the erstwhile Alecia Moore the rest of ’06.
One year later, you may be agog to hear to hear Pink back on the radio. This week, her go-home-and-whack kiss-off “U + Ur Hand” becomes Pink’s first Top 10 hit since 2002’s “Just Like a Pill.” The notable feat: Zomba, Pink’s label, actually waited out slow-moving radio stations rather than trying to push the song on iTunes. One by one, Top 40 stations added “U + Ur Hand”–beguiled by the song’s sticky hook (which owes more than a little to Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life,” but nevermind)–and digital sales eventually followed. Zomba’s Tom Carraba, thumping his chest a bit overmuch, told Billboard a few weeks ago that the song was “reignit[ing] the U.S. marketplace. We think we have a number-one record on our hands.” We wouldn’t go that far, but it’s fair for him to crow. A decade or two ago, a 17-week climb into the Top 10 wouldn’t be a big deal, but these days it’s a major achievement.
Speaking of slow-climbing hits: Pink thinks she’s had a long slog? Check out Carrie Underwood, whose nearly year-old country hit “Before He Cheats” is up to #11 in its 34th week. Hmmm: Pink’s song is about telling a no-good bar pickup to get reacquainted with his kung-fu grip; Carrie’s is about going all Angela Bassett on a faithless man’s pickup. And they’re both on Sony BMG. Yo, Clive: we smell duet!
The Billboard Hot 100 [Billboard]
