Now That Was Totally On The Radio and Stuff! Vol. 2: Forgotten Singles of the Early 2000s

OTM. lotta "Genie in a Bottle" wannabes in circulation, probably more than "Baby One More Time" wannabes.

also, is there a handy word for the guitar sound at the beginning of "leaving town," the bridge of "flavor of the weak," and the start of "she's so high"? it's this certain kind of processed prettiness that I think is supposed to add yearning-ness, maybe keep a guitar band closer to boy-band territory in terms of emotional accessibility/vulnerability. i'm imagining an effects pedal with a dial for "thoughtfulness and sensitivity," you stomp it when you're about to switch from the loud part to the quiet part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH8FctYMM80

Black Eyed Peas ft. Macy Gray - Request + Line. Pre-Fergie BEP, nonetheless shedding a bit of their conscious backpacker thing and stepping (especially in the visuals) towards the club-pop turf that made their fortunes. Still kind of an interesting/strange idea about a single; it's very laid-back, sounding almost like a remix of itself (especially in the most interesting touch, Gray coming in ghostily to quote "Last night a DJ saved my life"), but without any kind of urgent plot line or need to exist. I remember my roommate mishearing the chorus as "Tell me your secrets, mister radio man," which is already way more engaging. Gray's raspy voice is a good foil for the incipient techno-futurism of the rest of the proceedings, and overall I'd much rather hear this than either Madonna's "Music" or L-Lo's "Play," similarly devoted to music or the playing thereof but both much more obnoxious.

i don't think this ever got any significant radio play but it got played a lot on mtv (i apologize in advance for reminding you all of it b/c it's awful)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtcb4E0Ado0

Probably best remembered as "That group Nicole Scherzinger used to be in before the Pussycat Dolls":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHdCSLeS2rc

goddammit i had nearly forgotten about "shaniqua"

i'd post eamon but let's be real no one has forgotten eamon

fuck it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYwyaCd8MyI

wikipedia claims ellie greenwich co-wrote fuck it which seems questionable at best

although this is the guy who added that to the article so who knows https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Giovannii84&offset=&limit=500&target=Giovannii84

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0DK-z5EXzw

Danish example. These guys were everywhere in the media at the beginning of 01, claimed they were going to 'revolutionize Danish rock', part of a wave of young bands, who were all going to modernize Danish rock out of the grunge-years, basically by copying Coldplay or Kent. Nearly everyone of them had nonsensical two-part names (Racetrack Babies, Carpark North, Moon Gringo, Racing Ape, stuff like that. Moon Gringo were awesome, though.) A few months later Is This It hit, nobody thought Coldplay-copying was actually cool anymore. Jupiter Day broke up before releasing a second album.

Swedish version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rayIckOBmo

lol nope this guy either vandalized or fucked up bad

I'm way too prepared for this.

Samantha Mumba "Gotta Tell You" is possibly my personal ultimate one of these.
Dream "He Loves You Not"
Korn "Word Up"
Iio "Rapture"
Afroman "Because I Got High"
Bloodhound Gang "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo"
Peter Searcy "Losing Light Fast"
Velvet Revolver "Fall To Pieces"

Are these songs too unforgotten though? I'm not sure how to tell whether they fit the question.

I guess these too:

D12 "Purple Pills" & "My Band"
Elton John "I Want Love"
LFO "Every Other Time"
Sugar Ray "When It's Over"
Kenna "Freetime"
The Darkness "Growing On Me"
Young Gunz "Can't Stop Won't Stop"
Diplomats "I Really Mean It"
G-Unit "Stunt 101" & "I Wanna Get To Know You"
Lillix "It's About Time"
Liam Lynch "United States of Whatever"
Sleepy Brown "I Can't Wait"
Cam'Ron "Down and Out"
Fabolous "Breathe"
Good Charlotte "I Just Wanna Live"

Disregard if any of these don't quite fit for whatever reason.

I promise this was on the radio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKsT7msbuBY

One of the alltime creepiest things ever on the radio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml7C-WfL8f8

expected this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfo0ORyqryo

I was gonna put SoulDecision, but it was on a Now comp. But come to think of it, I guess those are actually good resources for this.

"I Want Love" is a good one because it was really popular for a short while for being a more understated late-era Elton track and yet, I haven't heard it ANYWHERE in over a decade.

I will mention "Because I Got High" still has some popularity - people still doing it at karaoke, etc.

lol , yes definitely LIam Lynch - I was tempted to nominate that one. God I hate that song, but itw as definitely 'of the moment'.

I suppose this might be a whole 'nother category, but Darude "Sandstorm," Ian Van Dahl "Castles In The Sky," that "ohohohoh" zombie 5000 whatever it was called...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn-qE-h7s84

OH I GOT ONE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz23S9_AV4M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udmTfK6_aM8

Good companion piece to "Land of a Million Drums"

I still do that one at karaoke night! love Mike's verse on that.

but yeah it always gets the reaction of "oh wow yeah this was a song once"....

i'd post eamon but let's be real no one has forgotten eamon

or the response Frankie "Fuck You Right Back"

I think some have forgotten the response track!

your local *chan poster has not forgotten sandstorm

(n.b. "your local poster" =/= "me")

I heard "Gotta Tell You" as muzak a few months ago

Blaque - "Bring It All To Me"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4mjAOgHLvU

if someone already posted this i'm sorry i'm not going to click on every unlabeled youtube video in this thread

ah i love that blaque song

Brian McKnight "Back At One," lol

ONE, YR LIKE A DREAM COME TRUEEEE

City High - What Would You Do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LahcSFleKm8

haha I couldn't decide between that one or their other hit yesterday.

I always hated this song, not just because of the cheesy melody to go with the really dramatic subject matter, but how the 'narrator' of the song is all like "man just snap out of your shitty life"!

the standards for "forgotten" are slipping more and more

this song was mentioned in the princess diaries series and everything!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfoUSZ8suAM

idk their second hit is a lot better remembered than What Would You Do....

"back at one" maybe not so forgotten but i stand by the other two as long-forgotten (source: me)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeJ9Nvzp8VY

I hear that Blaque song on the rhythmic AC station here about once a month (in a JC & Lance-free version?!)

I feel like optimally for this thread they should be songs no one really took that much note of at the time.

billstevejim - It's a big-tent kind of thread! The only ones I'd personally wonder about would be "When It's Over" which was a pretty big hit and can't have really gone away too much, and Afroman, which (IMHO) has vanished only in the way that most novelty/comedy songs do - the joke ran its course, people collectively agreed not to tell it again for a while. But I'd 100% expect it to appear on a K-Tel or Time-Life comp of the era, if such things were to come back into fashion. I also wonder about the D-12 ones but those might be right at the border. If any of theirs sank without a trace it was probably the "we're tough" number, "Fight Music."

Those aside, your other picks are like exactly what I'm thinking of with these threads! .. like, god, that Bloodhound Gang song was such a non-starter. Amazing how unfunny (and just generally kind of... weird in tone) the video is, given their bread and butter.

And yeah, the back ends of Now! comps are actually pretty rich veins - under the big big hits they had to pad them out with something.

I considered "The Whole World," then ruled it out.... but now that I see it here I think it fits totally. New song added to a greatest-hits record to try and lure people who already had Stankonia but weren't familiar enough with the earlier stuff to be sold already. Got a lot of play at the time but maybe because it was ideally timed to catch the momentum from the hugeness of "Ms. Jackson." I feel like if you asked non-fans to name an Outkast song, or pick one to add to a playlist, they might eventually get there but not for a good long while.

I knew of the existence of this song but apparently not what the verses sounded like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnm53N_nCJA

this wasn't even on the radio but fuck it

to a certain contingent of kids born in the 90's, you might remember the movie Snow Day, and on the soundtrack was this pretty little strummer. kinda like Juliana Hatfield or something.

the year two thousand was fifteen years ago....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohgUxSVuQ00

early-'00s teen movie soundtracks are a fucking goldmine for this stuff. (also, the greatest genre of music. add late-'90s teen movie soundtracks and their power-pop and you could never listen to anything else in your life.)

here, Darkchild trying his hardest to be Max Martin, aka "what happened to the 'Baby One More Time' rips?":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpx24jSOmtI

a single by one Greg Kurstin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVN2DOChfDM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrCsubL_OSQ

I'm so glad Ashanti's been forgotten. Ech.

That song doesn't belong in this thread & Ashanti hasn't been forgotten at all