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Apologize Hits 4 on Billboard Hot

Hip Hop Remix by OneRepublic and Timbaland Part of new Music Trend

© Heather Larson

Oct 11, 2007
Following in the footsteps of Rihanna's Umbrella and Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girls, Timbaland and OneRepublic's remix of Apologize climbs the charts.

The song of the moment is the Apologize Remix by Timbaland and OneRepublic. People everywhere are going nuts over this song, whether it’s on iTunes, Facebook, MySpace, or on the radio. The best news is, this is just another hit in the latest trend of cross-genre remixes. Rihanna’s Umbrella was the last one and Sean Kingston’s Beautiful Girls before that.

Apologize Rockets Up the Charts

Apologize is up to #4 from #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 right now. The haunting and emotional lyrics of a failed relationship could be enough if the song were just a cappella. But it’s not. The singer’s voice is dressed in a mournful but poignant piano, a layer of strings, and simple percussion elements. If Fox’s The OC were still around, it would be the perfect backdrop to a Ryan and Marissa relationship drama. Fortunately the show is no longer around to spoil a song that is perfect enough to stand on its own.

Collaboration Production Today

Kudos to Timbaland for dressing up an already perfect song with a hip hop beat and taking it mainstream. Because everyone knows the way to win in the industry now is to country-fy a song or fill it up with a hip-hop beat.

  • Kelly Clarkson and Reba McEntire: A country-fied example of this would be Kelly Clarkson’s Because Of You, which was given extra mileage by being placed on Reba McEntire’s Duets album. Now it’s running up the country charts. Quite honestly, the song was great to start with but Reba’s version is even better. It’s even more full of emotion than it was the first time.

  • Kanye West and Chris Martin of Coldplay: The rate things are going, sometimes it seems like the only way to get a song some attention is to make it a collaboration. Take Homecoming off of Kanye West’s brand new album Graduation for example. The song features a guest vocals by Coldplay’s Chris Martin. This jam between a rapper and a rocker is pure bliss.
The kind of breadth and depth these collaborations offer is a tremendous promotional gift to the music industry. It introduces hip hop fans to OneRepublic who wouldn’t have discovered this band otherwise. It brings Clarkson fans to McEntire and vice versa. The fans, the artists, and the industry win. It’s a beautiful thing.

Sources

Apologize before and after Timbaland on OneRepublic's MySpace page.

Billboard Hot 100

Kanye West's Official Blog

Kanye West and Chris Martin's Homecoming


The copyright of the article Apologize Hits 4 on Billboard Hot in Pop Music is owned by Heather Larson. Permission to republish Apologize Hits 4 on Billboard Hot in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.




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