Billboard notes the quirky chart notation for “I’m A Flirt,” the R. Kelly-penned song that appeared on Bow Wow’s album before getting remixed, and de-Bowed, by Kelly. Because of the two versions’ common ground, they will be tracked as a single entity on the Billboard singles charts:
The song has been recorded by both Bow Wow and R. Kelly. Bow Wow’s version features Kelly, who co-penned the track, while Kelly’s version subs out Bow Wow for T.I. and T-Pain.
Due to the similar characteristics of each song, the plays for both versions will be totaled under one chart listing. This week, it debuts at No. 90 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the attribution Bow Wow or R. Kelly (featuring T.I. & T-Pain).
We’re not sure who the “winner” in this odd new-era chart battle could be; even though we’ve been listening to Kells’ remix more, Bow Wow seems to have the advantage, since he’s getting top billing without having to do much more than pick a different song for his second single. So we decided to put it to science, and wouldn’t you know: Googlefight would seem to agree.
Who’s That ‘Flirt?’: Bow Wow, And R. Kelly, Too [Billboard]
this, more than likely, is only because of how BDS tracks radio spins by matching the song being played to a sort of digital thumbprint.
Good call, brainchild.
This is one of the weirder single credits, but it’s not totally unprecedented. There have been two straight-up duets in the last half-decade that have featured an “or” credit due to duet partners, singles rights and radio formats.
The Santana hit “Why Don’t You & I” from 2003 featured vocals by the Inexplicably Durable Chad Kroeger of Nickelback. But due to rights issues, by the time the song was worked as a single it had a recrecorded vocal from Alex Band of the Calling. Stations either played the album cut or the single mix, which were basically indistinguishable, which meant Billboard’s chart credit read “Santana featuring Chad Kroeger or Alex Band.”
The Kid Rock ballad “Picture” had two different duet partners, Sheryl Crow (album cut) and Alison Moorer – the latter picked to garner country airplay. So as the song climbed the charts, the credit read “Kid Rock featuring Sheryl Crow or Allison Moorer,” although I seem to recall the country chart only listed Moorer.
I was wondering about that. Is there a “similarity threshold” for the BDS system? What about remixes that render the songs they’re derived from nearly unrecognizable (like, say, the dance remix of that JoJo song)?
They just shot a video for the R Kelly version. I guess that promotion will push Bow Wow up the charts. The track is not a single for the Little Guy, so I would imagine the Googlefight results might change.
@maura:
I think BDS distinguishes different mixes of songs, but then Billboard decides whether they constitute a legitimate remix retaining elements of the original song. An old-school remix of the song that, say, throws a house beat behind a ballad would be permissible and count toward the song’s aggregated chart position.
However, Billboard actively discourages full-on rerecordings of songs in a bid to win multi-format airplay. They actually had to make a rule about five years ago, informally called the “J. Lo rule,” inspired by all the so-called “remixes” of Lopez’s songs that were actually full-blown rerecordings at different tempos with guest rappers and new lyrics: cf. “I’m Real,” “Ain’t It Funny,” etc. Before the rule, the dirty trick of such rerecordings was that labels were basically getting one super-sized chart position out of two completely different recordings. Now, if it’s blatantly obvious that the vocal and the backing track and the beat have been redone from scratch, it charts separately.