{"id":7525,"date":"2016-05-29T23:36:31","date_gmt":"2016-05-30T06:36:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=7525"},"modified":"2016-05-31T23:44:52","modified_gmt":"2016-06-01T06:44:52","slug":"awesome-story-behind-the-song-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2016\/05\/29\/awesome-story-behind-the-song-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"The Awesome Story Behind the Song of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billboard.com\/articles\/columns\/pop\/7334174\/ruth-b-lost-boy-hot-100-hit-finding-neverland\" target=\"_blank\">from Billboard Magazine<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<h1>Ruth B&#8217;s &#8216;Lost Boy&#8217; And The Story Behind The Year&#8217;s Strangest Hot 100 Hit<\/h1>\n<p>by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.billboard.com\/author\/elias-leight-6236418\" target=\"_blank\">Elias Leight<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-3m_V1XNPxA\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billboard.com\/artist\/6829592\/ruth-b\/chart\">Ruth B<\/a>\u2019s \u201cLost Boy\u201d is easily the most unusual song on the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.billboard.com\/charts\/hot-100\">Hot 100<\/a>: when it cracked the top 50 earlier this month, it was the only unadorned piano ballad on the chart\u2019s top half, no small feat. It\u2019s also the only song on the chart inspired by a more than century-old play.<\/p>\n<p>That play is\u00a0<em>Peter Pan<\/em>, first staged in 1904 and currently enjoying something of a moment in pop music. Last summer, an album with the same theme was released to accompany the musical\u00a0<em>Finding Neverland<\/em>, but despite contributions from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.billboard.com\/artist\/312243\/nick-jonas\/chart\">Nick Jonas<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.billboard.com\/artist\/304444\/jennifer-lopez\/chart\">Jennifer Lopez<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.billboard.com\/artist\/431782\/zendaya\/chart\">Zendaya<\/a>, nothing cracked the Hot 100. But Ruth B\u2019s out-of-nowhere success &#8212; she was an unknown without a record deal before \u201cLost Boy\u201d &#8212; suggests that the problem was with the execution rather than the concept.\u00a0 And Peter Pan\u2019s appeal transcends genres: while \u201cLost Boy\u201d climbs the charts, country listeners are warming to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.billboard.com\/artist\/6276520\/kelsea-ballerini\/chart\">Kelsea Ballerini<\/a>\u2019s \u201cPeter Pan,\u201d No. 28 and climbing on the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.billboard.com\/charts\/country-songs\">Hot Country Songs<\/a>\u00a0chart.<\/p>\n<p>That secret other world has spawned a thousand spinoffs, and the Peter Pan character in the TV show\u00a0<em>Once Upon A Time<\/em>\u00a0is the one who inspired Ruth B to write her hit. After watching an episode, she headed downstairs to her keyboard. \u201cI was in a Peter Pan headspace,\u201d she remembers. \u201cI sang that first line out of nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ruth is a fan of the app Vine &#8212; especially after a spontaneous decision to post a loop of her singing the chorus to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.billboard.com\/artist\/301284\/drake\/chart\">Drake<\/a>\u2019s \u201cHold On We\u2019re Going Home,\u201d which led to a large increase in followers. She\u2019d never written a song before the first line of \u201cLost Boy,\u201d though, so she was hesitant to promote it on the app. \u201cI initially didn\u2019t even want to post it because it was a little bit cheesy,\u201d she says. \u201cBut it kept ringing through my head.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She eventually posted it, and the reaction was immediate: people wanted more. She started to add lines in Vine-able increments. \u201cI would finish studying, come down stairs, and add a line to the chorus,\u201d she explains. \u201cIn a week, I had a chorus, so I decided I should turn this into a full song and take it to YouTube.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The result, built six seconds at a time, is a beatless piano ballad. Chords hang in the air, never pressing on top of each other. Ruth occasionally climbs into falsetto, but the track doesn\u2019t have much movement or drama. Although it\u2019s about finding friends, Ruth sings alone, and this isolation is emphasized by an echo effect. Her Neverland is a place of complete liberty &#8212; \u201clost boys like me are free\u201d &#8212; and the singer avoids taking sides in the frequently violent squabbles that divide the island\u2019s characters in the original story: \u201cPeter Pan, Tinker Bell, Wendy darling, even Captain Hook\/ You are my perfect storybook.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But a perfect story, even one with the long term resonance of\u00a0<em>Peter Pan<\/em>, doesn\u2019t guarantee a national hit. That\u2019s where major label radio promotion comes in handy. The tale of \u201cLost Boy\u201d seesaws between old and new media &#8212; while there\u2019s a nostalgia inherent in the idea of not wanting to grow up, the most up-to-date technology played a crucial role in the track\u2019s formation; though Vine helped \u201cLost Boy\u201d bubble up, old-school radio power gave it a key boost.<\/p>\n<p>The radio clout was corralled in part by Lee Leipsner, EVP and head of promotion at Columbia Records. He has been at Sony music for 22 years; before that, he spent five years at Mercury records. On the phone, he has the enthusiasm and fervor of a lifelong salesman, and an arsenal of statistics to support his points. \u201cIt never gets old breaking records,\u201d he tells me.<\/p>\n<p>[ <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billboard.com\/articles\/columns\/pop\/7334174\/ruth-b-lost-boy-hot-100-hit-finding-neverland\" target=\"_blank\">click to read full article at Billboard<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from Billboard Magazine Ruth B&#8217;s &#8216;Lost Boy&#8217; And The Story Behind The Year&#8217;s Strangest Hot 100 Hit by\u00a0Elias Leight Ruth B\u2019s \u201cLost Boy\u201d is easily the most unusual song on the\u00a0Hot 100: when it cracked the top 50 earlier this month, it was the only unadorned piano ballad on the chart\u2019s top half, no small [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}