Beautiful Girls (Sean Kingston song)

Infobox Single
Name = Beautiful Girls


Artist = Sean Kingston
from Album = Sean Kingston
Released = May 26, 2007
Format = CD single, ringle
Recorded = 2007
Genre = Pop
Rock and roll
Reggae
R&B
Hip Hop
Length = 4:02 (Album Version)
3:43 (Radio Version)
3:30 ("In Denial"/Clean Version)
4:17 (Video/Orchestral Version)
Label = Epic, Geffen, Viacom, Koch
Writer = Kisean Anderson, Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Producer = J.R. Rotem
Certification = Platinum (RIANZ)
Gold (ARIA)
Last single =
This single = "Beautiful Girls"
(2007)
Next single = "Me Love"
(2007)

"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" [Songfacts. [http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=9506 "Beautiful Girls" Songfacts] . Retrieved 2008-1-10] 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 Kenny Vibert and Lil' JJ are featured in the music video.

This song was #86 on "MTV Asia"'s list of Top 100 Hits of 2007. [MTV Asia. [http://www.mtvasia.com/Funstuff/Contests/MTVTop100Hits2007/top100.html "Top 100 Hits List"] . Retrieved 2007-12-27]

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. [ [http://www.independent.ie/national-news/station-bans-hit-song-about-suicide-1084875.html "Independent.ie" - Station bans hit song about suicide (September 21, 2007)] .] FM104 replaced "suicidal" with "in denial", a change Sean Kingston made for the radio station.

Remixes

*Official Remix featuring Fabolous and Lil Boosie
*Official Remix featuring Flo Rida
*Remix featuring AC

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"). [ [http://billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003620486 "BillBoard.com" - Kingston Has 'Beautiful' View Atop Revamped Hot 100 (August 2, 2007)] ] Kingston became the first artist born within the 1990s to top the Hot 100, beating rapper
Soulja Boy to it by six weeks. [ [http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/chart_beat/bonus.jsp Breaking Music News - Music Business Information - Music Industry Sales ] ] 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 year's 15th biggest-selling single in the UK. [BBC Music. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/chart/singles2007.shtml "Top 40 Singles of the Year 2007 "] . Retrieved 2007-12-30]

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".

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 [http://video.music.yahoo.com/up/music/music/?vid=52215136 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." [cite web
title=Yahoo Music - Beautiful Girls: Pepsi Smash Exclusive Cover Art by Plain White T's
url=http://video.music.yahoo.com/up/music/music/?vid=52215136
accessdate=2008-02-28] 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.

Deer Tick recorded a cover of Beautiful Girls, which can be found on Myspace.com.

Casey Crescenzo of The Dear Hunter recorded a cover of this song and has occasionally performed it live.

JoJo recorded a cover, changing the perspective from male to female. Example: Instead of the lyric "She'll have you suicidal", she sings "We'll have you suicidal" referencing herself as one of the "beautiful girls" of the title.

Parodies

*Chris Moyles and Comedy Dave from BBC Radio 1 have produced a popular parody, Sean Krapston - A Suicidal song. [ [http://chrismoyles.net/soundvault/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1660 Download of Sean Krapston - A Suicidal song] ]

*Kel Mitchell has produced a song on his MySpace called "Scariest Girl".

References