Partying like it's 2002 with Nelly
March 16, 2014 1:14 PM   Subscribe

Bay Area radio station 105.7 (Santa Clara) has been playing Nelly's 2002 hit "Hot in Herre" for over 48 hours as part of a format change promotion. Originally released in 2002, St. Louis rapper's "Hot in Herre" was produced by the Neptunes on the album "Nellyville." Media outlets around the country have taken notice, including Gawker, Time, and Rolling Stone. As one might imagine, Twitter has also responded. You can listen to the radio station right here.
posted by mostly vowels (64 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
I picked this up when I was in Oakland yesterday. At first I was surprised and perplexed, then captivated by the funky groove, then I realized it's kind of a douche anthem. Still, you know, let your Nelly flag fly, yall.
posted by ottereroticist at 1:18 PM on March 16, 2014


*takes off all his clothes*
posted by jonmc at 1:20 PM on March 16, 2014 [9 favorites]


The extra r in the title is pretty much my favorite thing from 2002.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:20 PM on March 16, 2014 [19 favorites]


Nelly gets eternal props for doing a (very stupid) Smokey and the Bandit tribute video. My wife and I were doing the rounds of old rap videos last night after the Mcconnelling thread reminded me that Mystikal once was a thing, and we decided that was one of our all time favorites (non Hype Williams league, obviously: every sensible human can agree that Gimme some More is mankind's supreme audiovisual achievement).
posted by selfnoise at 1:27 PM on March 16, 2014 [3 favorites]


My favorite song to have a fire in my apartment to
posted by clockzero at 1:28 PM on March 16, 2014 [3 favorites]


When I was in high school, one of the radio stations played "It's the End of the World as We Know It" by R.E.M. on repeat for a couple days straight with no commercials - I think they were moving the station to another physical location and they did this as both a publicity stunt and super easy way to stay on the air during the transition - and now that song is just burned into my brain. Love when stations do this.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:30 PM on March 16, 2014


selfnoise: I saw Mystikal do a surprise appearance (with Trombone Shorty, I think) at JazzFest a few years ago. He's still very well known in New Orleans, and when he busted out a few bars of Shake Ya Azz (sanitized though to Shake It Fast), it was one of the most glorious moments of my life.
posted by mostly vowels at 1:31 PM on March 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


*takes off all his clothes*

Amateur. I've been nude for over 48 hrs.

It's so cold in herre.
posted by griphus at 1:32 PM on March 16, 2014 [22 favorites]


I think it was VH1 that broadcast Prince's "Party like it's 1999" video for twenty four hours on New Years Eve 1999.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 1:33 PM on March 16, 2014


Since this is such a common type of promotion, I've been trying to figure out why this particular instance has caught everyone's attention. I think it's in large part the song, but when I first saw this (on Reddit, a couple of days ago) the headline implied that people didn't now why the station was doing it. But anyone with any radio experience or familiarity at all knew exactly what was up the second they read the headline.

Strange. It's so hard to predict what's going to go viral.
posted by themanwho at 1:39 PM on March 16, 2014 [5 favorites]


Ah, it's looped. I had kind of been hoping they were playing a version slowed down enough to last 48 hours. Like, if you speed up recordings of whale vocalizations it turns out they're actually just singing this song all the time.
posted by XMLicious at 1:40 PM on March 16, 2014 [28 favorites]


Oh hell, this was my theme song while hiking around Europe in 2003. However, it seemed more effective in the Paris hotel room while trying to get the air conditioning working.
posted by jadepearl at 1:41 PM on March 16, 2014


Holy cow, that is... oddly addictive. And I loved the one Twitter user's idea of measuring time in "hot in herre" units. (For the record, folding laundry is 3 "hot in herres.")
posted by TwoStride at 1:44 PM on March 16, 2014 [4 favorites]


griphus: be careful or it'll fall off.
posted by jonmc at 1:47 PM on March 16, 2014


Ten years ago I worked on a show that was a completely deranged dystopic race-relations play; the opening scene was set on Jefferson's plantation, in the fields where his slaves were at work. The director wanted to play a recording of the cast singing some kind of modern song done over in the style of a plantation work song over the scene, but when we met to record them, he hadn't figured out what song to do. A couple guys in the cast said they had an idea, and brought the cast into a side room for about 5 minutes - and worked out an a capella plantation work song arrangement of "Hot In Herre". We used it, of course - and one of my favorite parts of doing that show was watching the realization what song it was slowly spreading through the audience.

It sounded surprisingly good, actually. One of our cast said "we should do that to every hip hop song, take 'em and make 'em holy!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:51 PM on March 16, 2014 [23 favorites]


I think it's in large part the song, but when I first saw this (on Reddit, a couple of days ago) the headline implied that people didn't now why the station was doing it. But anyone with any radio experience or familiarity at all knew exactly what was up the second they read the headline.

I'm gonna guess that most people don't have radio industry experience and really didn't know why the song was playing over and over. I listen to a lot of radio during my commute, but had no knowledge of this practice until it was explained in that reddit thread.
posted by nooneyouknow at 1:58 PM on March 16, 2014 [2 favorites]


I wish the sound quality degraded a little bit every time the song repeated, like Disintegration Loops.

That first Nelly album had some SERIOUS jams - Country Grammar, E.I., Ride Wit Me. These were huge drinking/partying anthems for me in college. Nellyville didn't do much for me, but Dilemma (with Kelly Rowland) is a pretty good slow jam. "Hot In Herre" was pretty insufferable and way overplayed, but that first album is pure nostalgia, man.
posted by naju at 2:02 PM on March 16, 2014 [11 favorites]


This made the local (Bay Area) news last night, and my wife and I were a bit nonplussed. Serious question: Why is this news?? I don't get it. I mean, it's not like people lack the ability to put a song on infinite repeat if they choose to.

Hey, you -- offa my lawn!
posted by mosk at 2:02 PM on March 16, 2014 [2 favorites]


I heard they were doing this, but without the context. I thought they were just psyched it's over 70* this weekend.
posted by 2bucksplus at 2:10 PM on March 16, 2014 [3 favorites]


A whole 48 hours? Pikers.
posted by maudlin at 2:30 PM on March 16, 2014


Now we need a TV station that broadcasts a continuous loop of Voldo from Soul Calibur dancing to that song.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:33 PM on March 16, 2014 [6 favorites]


Coming out, as it did, in the year of Star Wars Episode II, I always envisaged the chorus of this song as a particularly creepy/rapey Jedi mind trick in the "These aren't the droids you're looking for" vein.
posted by Omission at 2:44 PM on March 16, 2014


Okay, that's fucking weird. For no fathomable reason, yesterday I suddenly got "Hot In Herre" stuck in my head. I haven't heard that song in probably 10 years. Radio waves are invading my brain, I just know it.

Also, ionosphere bounce conspired with radio waves to get them through to my dome in Portland.
posted by mediocre at 2:44 PM on March 16, 2014


Sometime in the 90s our favorite station in l.a. went off the air but the 48 hours prior, they played the spice girls "Tell me what you want" in protest. Painful.
posted by Sophie1 at 2:48 PM on March 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


Here in the Twin Cities years ago a radio station did a format change and they did a simular thing (known in the industry as stunting) with REM's Its the End of the World and people thought it was a hostage situation.
posted by wheelieman at 2:51 PM on March 16, 2014


About 15 years ago there was a station about to go through a format change, only to have a competing station pull an overnight switch and pick the exact SAME format.

While the new station regrouped they switched to a temporary format: one artist a day, playing all of their albums in chronological order. Carpenters. Rush. Weird Al. No announcers. No hint as to who would be on tomorrow. For two weeks it was the greatest thing I've ever heard on the radio.

Then they eventually announced their new aging-boomer rock format and the magic was lost.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:55 PM on March 16, 2014 [10 favorites]


I am sure it is really a cost saving measure on the part of the new management. Most stations do not do a format change in an instant, it takes a day or two of administrative changes before the actual moment of changeover. So instead of putting a talent on air (at a cost) to countdown the final moments of their jobs, they stunt for a while and get people talking.
posted by mediocre at 2:56 PM on March 16, 2014


I hadn't heard about this, and coincidentally just had a conversation about songs played repeatedly during format changes. Three solid days of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" as a decent jazz station in Florida became another oldies station.
posted by Foosnark at 2:57 PM on March 16, 2014


I caught Louie Louie driving cross-country. I kind of wish they had stuck it out. I listened until I lost the station.
posted by ctmf at 2:57 PM on March 16, 2014


It is kinda hot in Santa Clara today.
posted by GuyZero at 3:11 PM on March 16, 2014


Are you all Minnesotans talking about when they launched 93.7 The Edge? I still remember turning on the stereo to listen to that and thinking it was the funniest thing ever.
posted by This_Will_Be_Good at 3:14 PM on March 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


I wonder if they'll take requests.
posted by backseatpilot at 3:15 PM on March 16, 2014 [2 favorites]


There's some historical precedent for that in the Bay Area... back in 1992, WILD 107 played "Wild Thing" for 72 hours.
posted by ph00dz at 3:15 PM on March 16, 2014


I just heard a Nelly song from that time period on the radio here in St. Louis a day or so ago (I can't remember whether it was "Hot in Herre" or "Ride Wit Me"). It made me feel nostalgic for the summer of 2001, when my then-boyfriend and I drove around town in his father's green Mustang listening to Country Grammar. I listened further and alternately appreciated it for its catchiness and hated it for its cheapness.
posted by limeonaire at 3:19 PM on March 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


New Toronto station Indie 88.1 pulled a similar trick recently when they started broadcasting, but the song was... different.
posted by tapesonthefloor at 3:23 PM on March 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


I recommend replacing carpe diem or YOLO or any number of related phrases with a rhetorical "why you in the bar if you ain't poppin' bottles?" Nelly is an inspiration.
posted by papayaninja at 3:33 PM on March 16, 2014 [6 favorites]


One of the stations in Hampton Roads converted to a classical Chinese station named Kung Pao for a week before they swapped over to club hits.

To be honest, I kinda liked the other one better.
posted by daHIFI at 3:45 PM on March 16, 2014


I graduated from college in '02. The previous few years each had their own schmaltzy graduation-themed radio hit ("Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen" in '99, "Graduation (Friends Forever)" in '00, "Here's to the Night" in '01), so I loved that my year had "Hot in Herre" all over the radio instead.

My favorite Nelly song has always been Air Force Ones. I'm not going to pretend it's a great song; it's about buying fuckloads of shoes. I like it for its ridiculousness.
posted by Metroid Baby at 3:47 PM on March 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


I once played "There's A Hole In the Bucket" on loop for 30 minutes at my college radio station. I received calls about it being either the best and most annoying thing they've ever heard, with one person saying it was both at the same time. I wish I could have done it for 48 hours.
posted by lownote at 3:49 PM on March 16, 2014 [6 favorites]


When I was a kid, I remember one of the big local stations doing a format change that included a full 72 hours of every comedy and novelty record in the station vaults, basically a whole three-day weekend of Spike Jones, Weird Al, Monty Python, Cheech & Chong, Tiny Tim, and the Firesign Theater, and a bunch of other stuff I still can't quite identify. I didn't grow up in a market that had Dr. Demento, so that weekend taught the 10-year-old me a lot about life.
posted by Strange Interlude at 3:58 PM on March 16, 2014 [8 favorites]


In Dallas in the early 90s, there was a pop station that switched formats. For two days they played Bob Newhart comedy without interruption. It was freaking awesome. About two years ago in Austin they started playing an all-standup-comedy station. Similarly awesome, although that station plays Tejano now.
posted by nushustu at 4:34 PM on March 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


WHFS transmitiendo desde la ciudad capital de America: Esta! Es! Tu! Nueva! Radio!
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:18 PM on March 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh, rotten, rotten, so rotten here...it was, like, the last day before trash day...
posted by Melismata at 6:19 PM on March 16, 2014


I once played "There's A Hole In the Bucket" on loop for 30 minutes at my college radio station. I received calls about it being either the best and most annoying thing they've ever heard, with one person saying it was both at the same time.

Annoying? But Franti's got such a groove going there! 30 minutes isn't enough.

One of the college radio stations I worked at was run out of a dorm with less-than-stellar security; the only items in the on-air library which nobody wanted badly enough to steal were several 101 Strings LPs, plus a cassette single of "Love Shack".

I had a 3 to 6 overnight on that station, and the person who hosted the following show had a habit of sleeping late. One morning, sick of covering for another 60 to 90 minutes and seriously hungry for breakfast, I put the Love Shack cassette into the tape deck, set it to continuous loop (I forget what the B side was but it got broadcast love that morning too) and locked up the station behind me upon leaving, as per station policy. Never got yelled for it, nobody from management even brought it up, but my relief started showing up 5, 10 minutes early.
posted by Spatch at 6:46 PM on March 16, 2014 [3 favorites]


My God. It seems like Hot in Herre came out just a few years ago. Twelve years? To this day whenever I feel it is getting hot in here the song pops up in my brain. It happened today while I was walking in the 90ºF weather this afternoon. Thank you Nelly.
posted by birdherder at 6:54 PM on March 16, 2014 [2 favorites]


I vaguely recall when a station in the Detroit area changed formats when I was around 11 or 12. (I think it might have been 96.3 in 1994, but I am not sure.) Anyway, they took it as an opportunity to play lots of novelty records. The two that I recall:

Benny Bell -- "Shaving Records"
Kip Addotta -- "Wet Dream"
posted by dhens at 7:29 PM on March 16, 2014 [2 favorites]


My favorite cover of Hot in Herre? Jenny Owen Youngs. [YouTube]

And then there was the story a friend told me about someone on their college dorm hall setting a single-track repeat of Minimum Wage by They Might Be Giants [YouTube] to blast from their stereo, then leaving the dorm for the day. They were highly unpopular by nightfall.
posted by ChrisTN at 8:35 PM on March 16, 2014 [3 favorites]


Back in, I guess it must have been the early-to-mid '90s, I was taking a weekend road trip with a friend. Driving through central Illinois on Friday, we came across a station playing "Proud Mary" (the CCR version). Then it played it again. We looked at each other. And they played it again. Then, to change it up, they played the Tina Turner version. Then the CCR version again. About that time, the friend got sick of it and changed the station.

On the way back on Sunday, going through the same area, now I'm driving, and the friend is asleep. I come across the station again, and curious, I leave it on. The entire time we're in range of that station, over an hour, it plays "Proud Mary." Mostly the CCR version. The Tina Turner version once every four or five times. And once, just once in that hour-plus, a different cover of "Proud Mary" that I wasn't familiar with. Never so much as a commercial or station identification in all that time, either. Just "Proud Mary." I posted about it to Usenet, and someone there explained, which was where I first learned that was a thing.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:46 PM on March 16, 2014


Just once I want to see some station stunt vexations to hype their transitions to an all-20th-century-avant-garde format. Playing it a handful of times would suffice.
posted by idiopath at 9:23 PM on March 16, 2014


I love this song, I'd probably have listened to it for most of the 48 hours.

And then there was the story a friend told me about someone on their college dorm hall setting a single-track repeat of Minimum Wage by They Might Be Giants [YouTube] to blast from their stereo, then leaving the dorm for the day.

Someone in my dorm did that with My Sharona fairly early in the year. That was the day a lot of people learned how easy it was to pick the dorm locks. And the beginning of Practical Joke Hell Year.
posted by fshgrl at 10:58 PM on March 16, 2014


I can't remember the last time I heard the original version, but I still listen to Jill Sobule's cover of Hot in Herre.
posted by dipping_sauce at 11:37 PM on March 16, 2014



Someone in my dorm did that with My Sharona fairly early in the year. That was the day a lot of people learned how easy it was to pick the dorm locks. And the beginning of Practical Joke Hell Year.


Was it Bradford Cox?
posted by Sonny Jim at 3:24 AM on March 17, 2014


In central Florida in the mid-'90s, an Oldies station announced its format change to alternative rock by playing Pizzicato 5's "Twiggy" for a week straight, cut with complaint calls from its former listenership. (Apparently, they then switched to "Modern Country" in 2000.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:39 AM on March 17, 2014


ChrisTN: "And then there was the story a friend told me about someone on their college dorm hall setting a single-track repeat of Minimum Wage by They Might Be Giants [YouTube] to blast from their stereo, then leaving the dorm for the day. They were highly unpopular by nightfall."

During my freshman year (ca. 1995), one of the guys in our dorm set his stereo to repeat the lead track from Vanilla Ice's To The Extreme -- a ten second clip of a voice shouting "YO, VANILLA! KICK IT ONE TIIIME, BOoOoOoOY!" -- before leaving for a long holiday weekend.

It was then that I learned to truly hate my fellow man.
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:44 AM on March 17, 2014


This takes me back, as in 2002 I was working in the electronics department of Target, where the TVs played a loop of about a dozen music videos, this being one of them. Since the tapes(!) only got changed every 4 months or so (and certain songs carried over to the new tape), there's a couple songs from that era which are permanently etched into my psyche, this being one of them. Now if someone could find a radio station playing a loop of Shakira's "Whenever, Wherever" or possibly Pink's "Get the Party Started" I could truly relive my days in retail hell.

It's a total coincidence that I reached the legal drinking age that year, but it didn't feel like it at the time.
posted by Panjandrum at 7:10 AM on March 17, 2014


Driving through central Illinois on Friday, we came across a station playing "Proud Mary" (the CCR version). Then it played it again. We looked at each other. And they played it again.

As someone locally raised there, let me assure you that this is the most Central Illinois thing that could have ever happened.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:43 AM on March 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


Reminds me of the same kind of stunt in 1985. KQAK ("The Quake") changed to KKCY ("The City") with a transition of three days of music by Brian Eno.

Not much of a change, after all - a bit more eclectic - but it was cool to hear Eno for three days.
posted by wellvis at 7:52 AM on March 17, 2014


Why is this news?? I don't get it. I mean, it's not like people lack the ability to put a song on infinite repeat if they choose to.

People
often do that. Radio stations often don't.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:07 AM on March 17, 2014


Does anyone know why playing the same song on a loop is a common thing for a radio station's format change?
posted by inertia at 11:41 AM on March 17, 2014


It gets attention and it's free press.

It is, as I discovered Sunday, a greta way to troll you teenage daughter while running errands.

I twist the radio dial, she rolls her eyes.
posted by GuyZero at 11:59 AM on March 17, 2014


It gets attention and it's free press.

It's also hella-easy to put something on and set "repeat" and just walk away and leave it running, as opposed to watching a clock and being in the middle of something and then realizing "shit I gotta switch to the next hour's block of programming".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:29 PM on March 17, 2014


(Although I suspect that I may be thinking a couple of levels of technology in the past there, but you know what I mean.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:30 PM on March 17, 2014


Yeah, I didn't realize before now that this is a common thing for radio stations to do during format changes. The only time I've heard it was in Biloxi, Mississippi - one of the many local classic-rock stations was changing (to a classic-rock format run/owned by some other company, I guess), and they played Fleetwood Mac's Go Your Own Way for two days straight. Had kind of a "fuck you" vibe to it.

I have to say I kind of think it's a hilarious (if annoying) stunt for stations to pull and I give it two solid thumbs up.
posted by aka burlap at 12:52 PM on March 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


Pretty sure radio stations are required to report out track identification etc. too, so this makes that a non-issue if you don't have anyone in the booth and don't want to worry about it.
posted by naju at 1:01 PM on March 17, 2014


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