"The Boy Is Mine" | ||||
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Single by Brandy and Monica | ||||
from the album Never Say Never and The Boy Is Mine | ||||
Released | May 4, 1998 | |||
Recorded | October 1997 [1] | |||
Studio | Los Angeles; Atlanta, Georgia | |||
Genre | R&B [2] | |||
Length |
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Label | Atlantic | |||
Songwriter(s) | ||||
Producer(s) |
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Brandy singles chronology | ||||
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Monica singles chronology | ||||
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Music video | ||||
"The Boy Is Mine" on YouTube |
"The Boy Is Mine" is a duet by American singers Brandy and Monica. It was written by LaShawn Daniels,Japhe Tejeda,Fred Jerkins III,Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins,and Brandy,while production was helmed by Jerkins and Dallas Austin. It was released as the lead single from both singers' second albums from 1998, Never Say Never by Brandy and the album of the same name by Monica. Inspired by Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney's 1982 duet "The Girl Is Mine",the lyrics of the mid-tempo R&B track revolve around two women fighting over a man. [3]
The song received generally positive reviews from music critics and was the first number-one pop hit for both artists,in the US and internationally. Exploiting the media's presumption of a rivalry between the two young singers, [4] "The Boy Is Mine" became the best-selling song of the year in the US,selling 2.6 million copies,and spent 13 weeks at the top of the US Billboard Hot 100. It became the second song in the history of the chart to ascend directly to number-one from a previous position beneath the Top 20,at number 23,following the Beatles and the 27–1 leap of their single "Can't Buy Me Love" in April 1964. Internationally,the single also achieved a strong charting,peaking at number one in Canada,the Netherlands and New Zealand,while reaching the top five on most of the other charts on which it appeared. [4]
The accompanying music video,directed by Joseph Kahn,starred the singers and Mekhi Phifer. It was nominated for two MTV Video Music Awards,including Video of the Year and Best R&B Video. In addition,"The Boy Is Mine" was awarded the Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group and received nominations for both Record of the Year and Best R&B Song in 1999. Billboard named it the Hot 100 Sales Single of Year and also listed it 54th on its 50th Anniversary All-Time Hot 100 Top Songs chart,as well as 18th on the All-Time Top R&B/Hip-Hop Songs countdown. The singers reunited on the 2012 single "It All Belongs to Me" and the remix of American singer Ariana Grande's 2024 single of the same name,"The Boy Is Mine".
"The Boy Is Mine" was a song Brandy wrote with Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, his brother Fred Jerkins III, Japhe Tejeda, and LaShawn Daniels. The singer came up with its concept while watching an episode of The Jerry Springer Show tabloid talk show, where love triangles among the guests was the theme. [5] Created as a solo track, Brandy originally recorded the song alone. [6] After listening to the result, however, she and Jerkins thought it would work better as a duet, [7] an idea which was further inspired by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson's 1982 hit duet "The Girl Is Mine". [8] At Brandy's request, her label Atlantic Records approached fellow R&B teen singer Monica to collaborate: [9] The pair had seen each other in passing at award shows and other live events, and Brandy thought a duet would help combat ongoing rumors that the singers were rivals. [7] With the permission of Clive Davis, who headed Monica's record company Arista Records, Monica eventually signed on to the project. [9]
Originally, the two artists recorded their vocals for the song together with Jerkins and his production team at the Record One studios in Los Angeles. However, the joint recording was felt to be a failure so Monica re-recorded her vocals separately at the DARP Studios in Atlanta, Georgia with longtime contributor Dallas Austin and turned the song into a more mature pop sound. [7] (Thus, Austin would later share the main production credit alongside Jerkins. [10] ) Though both Brandy and Monica repeatedly denied the song reflected any actual rivalry between them, tabloids began writing the opposite. There were claims that Monica was upset when Brandy performed the song solo on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno , and Brandy was reportedly miffed when Monica opted to take the name of the duet for the title of her second album. Following reports that the pair came to blows during a rehearsal for a performance at the MTV Video Music Awards in September 1998, talk of the rivalry became so loud that the singers' managers released a joint statement in which they called the press out for its "disturbing behavior" and called the "ongoing negativity [as] totally unfair." [11] However, Jerkins later claimed that both singers "didn’t get along" during production and that he and Dexter Simmons remixed the track seven times to keep everything even. [12] In a 2012 interview with WZMX, Monica spoke about her past relationship with Brandy:
"We were young. We could barely stay in the room with each other. By no means was it jealousy or envy. She and I are polar opposites and instead of embracing that, we used our differences as reasons not to be amongst each other." [13]
"The Boy Is Mine" was written by Brandy Norwood, LaShawn Daniels, Japhe Tejeda, Fred Jerkins III, and his brother Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins. [10] Musically, the song has been described as "R&B-pop." [14] [ citation needed ] Written in thirty-two-bar form, [15] "The Boy Is Mine" starts off with a twinkling yet stormy synthesized harp line, produced through the harp setting of a keyboard. [16] When the two protagonists initiate a conversation that depicts their first meeting as rivals, the track adds a pulsing beat and a countermelody of cello strings before the chorus kicks in. [17] [18] Similar to McCartney and Jackson's "The Girl Is Mine", Jerkins and his team structured "The Boy Is Mine" with spaces. [19] During the constructing of the lyrics, they settled on a call and response form, giving each singer two bars a piece to sing. [19]
According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, the song is set in the time signature of common time, with a tempo of 93 beats per minute. [20] It is written in the key of C♯ minor, [21] and it follows a chord progression of F♯m9–C♯m9, and the vocals span from G♯3 to F♯4. [22] The song's lyrics chronicle a catfight between two young women who try to convince each other that they are the object of a man's affection. [23] On the track, each trades increasingly escalating remarks about how the other must be mistaken, jealous or delusional about her importance to the man in question. [23] The chorus runs as follows: "You need to give it up, had about enough, it's not hard to see, the boy is mine." [22] Critics noted that the lyrics almost take on the heated fell of a political debate or even a reality show." [19]
The song has garnered positive reviews from music critics. AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine ranked the duet among the best songs on both album, Never Say Never (1998) and The Boy Is Mine (1998). [24] [25] Larry Flick from Billboard called it a "surprisingly subdued, ultimately sleek and soulful jam." He added, "Joined by fellow jeep ingénue Monica, TV's "Moesha" reveals a markedly matured style and a far more flexible range. Meanwhile, Monica whets appetites for her own forthcoming disc with a deliciously diva-driven performance that is rife with subtext." He complimented the producers for dressing the singers in "plush synths and quietly insinuating beats that will have seasoned listeners reminiscing about the heyday of Barry White and the Love Unlimited Orchestra. This isn't the obviously poppy or immediately infectious single one might have expected as the preview to Brandy's new disc, but after a second spin, you won't be able to shake the subtle hook from your brain." [26] Entertainment Weekly 's J.D. Considine felt that "there's none of the soul-baring theatrics we'd get if Faith Evans and Mary J. Blige had gone at it. Instead, the two younger women play second fiddle to the steady-thumping bass, keeping their voices so low you'd think they were afraid a teacher might overhear them." [27] In a different review, his colleague Matt Diehl wrote, "No, this isn't an estrogen flip on the Michael Jackson hit. Nor is it the soul-sista catfight that the pairing of these teen-dream divas-in-training promised (the too-silky production delivers a TKO to any gritty R&B tension). Still, child star Brandy sings like a woman for the first time, making her potential for an adult career à la Toni Braxton a distinct possibility." [2] Lorraine Ali, writing for Rolling Stone , complimented Jerkins' production for its "sweeping orchestration." [28] Craig Seymour from The Village Voice said that the song "creeps up on you with a harp sound that's like light twinkling on a reflective pool." He found that "You don't groove to it so much as you vibe in it, as Brandy and Monica kick a rather standard script [...] in their surprisingly complementary styles. Brandy is to groove what Monica is to rhythm. Where Brandy rides the contour of a melody like a wave, Monica advances and recedes, spontaneously creating then dismissing parallel rhythms." [29]
On June 5, 1998, "The Boy Is Mine" became both singers' first number-one hit and fifth top ten entry for each on the US Billboard Hot 100. [30] Bouncing from number 23 to the number 1 spot, it became the second song in the history of the chart to ascend directly to number-one from a previous position beneath the Top 20, following the Beatles and the 27–1 leap of their single "Can't Buy Me Love" in April 1964. [30] In addition, it was the first number-one collaboration between solo women since 1979's two-weeks number-one run of "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)," performed by Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer. [31] The same week, "The Boy Is Mine" also moved to number-one on the Hot R&B Singles, Hot 100 Singles Sales and Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales charts. [30] Within the first month of its purchasable release the song went on to sell 605,000 units. [32] It spent thirteen consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and was at the time the second-longest running number-one song in US chart history, sharing this record with Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" (1992). "The Boy Is Mine" was the best-selling single of 1998 in the US, with sales of 4,500,000, with the second best-selling single being Next's "Too Close". [33] [34] It was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and was ranked eighth on Billboard's Decade-End Charts. [35] The song spent 18 weeks in the top 10 and a total of 27 weeks in the Top 50.[ citation needed ]
Outside the US, "The Boy Is Mine" reached the top-ten in over 14 countries and topped the chart in Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand. In Canada, the song debuted on the RPM Singles Chart at number 74 on the RPM issue dated June 1, 1998, [36] and reached the top spot of the chart on August 21, 1998. [37] It was present on the chart for a total of 45 weeks. [38] It reached the top two in Belgium, France (platinum), Ireland, Norway (gold), and the United Kingdom (platinum); the top-five in Australia, Germany (gold), Sweden, and Switzerland (gold) and the top-ten in Austria (gold) and Italy.
The single won many awards throughout 1998 and 1999. It was nominated for three Grammy Awards at the 41st annual ceremony, winning both singers their first prize by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in the Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals category. It, however, lost in its nominations for Record of the Year and Best R&B Song to Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" and Lauryn Hill's "Doo Wop (That Thing)" respectively. The song garnered three Billboard Music Awards.
It was listed as number 55 of the Hot 100 singles of all time by Billboard [39] in 1998. This position was raised to number 54 in 2008. [40] In addition, it was listed 18th on the All-Time Top R&B/Hip-Hop Songs countdown. [41] In 2008, Billboard ranked the song third on a special The 40 Biggest Duets of All Time listing. [12] The song is the best-selling song of 1998 in the United States with 4.5 million copies sold. [42]
A music video for "The Boy Is Mine" was directed by Joseph Kahn. Filmed in Los Angeles in April 1998, it uses 90-degree tilts to depict the drama and the playfulness between the two. Making its debut on April 22, 1998, [43] it uses the radio edit of the song, removing the intro. It was nominated for two MTV Video Music Awards at the 1998 ceremony, including Best R&B Video and Video of the Year, but lost to both Wyclef Jean's "Gone Till November" and Madonna's "Ray of Light" respectively.
The video begins with Brandy watching an episode of The Jerry Springer Show. Next Monica who, using her remote, accidentally turns Brandy's TV along with her own to watch an old romantic movie. Confused, Brandy changes her channel back. Much to their dismay, whenever one of them turns the channel, the other's TV is also turned. They begin singing. The next scene shows the two discussing their problem among their separate groups of friends. The titular boy himself (played by Mekhi Phifer) then appears outside adjacent apartments, 6 & 7, where we later discover the two girls live; all their friends walk by him as they exit their respective friend's place. The girls are seen next arguing through their adjoining bedroom wall, until the boy phones them one after the other. They each overhear the other's conversation through the wall, realizing that they've both been played. They proceed to gather up all gifts and memorabilia related to the boy and toss them out the door. After Brandy and Monica sing more through the song's lyrics, the boy knocks on Brandy's door. The door opens showing Brandy for a brief moment before she opens the door wider to reveal Monica beside her. Noticing that he had been caught, the boy is taken aback, and the door is slammed in his face before he even gets a chance to talk to them, ending the video.
Brandy first performed the song by herself on The Tonight Show . Following that, she and Monica first performed it together at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles at the Gibson Amphitheatre on September 10, 1998, [44] an event which remains, to date, Brandy and Monica's only television broadcast performance of the song. The pair came together a second time on December 16, 2008, for a surprise performance at Atlanta's V103 Soul Session, singing it a cappella. [45]
In 2012, they performed the song with their new duet "It All Belongs To Me" at V-103's "Conversation/Soul Session". [46]
Publication | Country | Accolade | Year | Rank | ||
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Billboard | United States | 1,001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die, and 10,001 You Must Download[ citation needed ] | 2010 | — | ||
Bruce Pollock – The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944-2000[ citation needed ] | 2005 | — | ||||
Michaelangelo Matos – Top 100 Singles of the 1990s[ citation needed ] | 2001 | |||||
(*) designates lists that are unordered. |
US 12-inch single [47]
US and Canadian maxi-CD single [48] [49]
| US CD, 7-inch, and cassette single [50] [51] [52]
UK CD and 12-inch single, Australian CD single [53] [54]
UK cassette single and European CD single [55] [56]
|
Credits are taken from the Never Say Never liner notes. [10]
|
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Weekly charts
| Year-end charts
Decade-end charts
All-time charts
|
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
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Australia (ARIA) [115] | Platinum | 70,000^ |
Belgium (BEA) [116] | Platinum | 50,000* |
France (SNEP) [117] | Platinum | 500,000* |
Germany (BVMI) [118] | Gold | 250,000^ |
Netherlands (NVPI) [119] | Platinum | 75,000^ |
New Zealand (RMNZ) [120] | Platinum | 10,000* |
Norway (IFPI Norway) [121] | Gold | |
Sweden (GLF) [122] | Platinum | 30,000^ |
Switzerland (IFPI Switzerland) [123] | Gold | 25,000^ |
United Kingdom (BPI) [124] | Platinum | 816,000 [125] |
United States (RIAA) [126] | 2× Platinum | 2,591,000 [33] |
* Sales figures based on certification alone. |
Region | Date | Format(s) | Label(s) | Ref(s). |
---|---|---|---|---|
United States | May 4, 1998 | Atlantic | [32] [127] | |
May 5, 1998 | [128] | |||
May 19, 1998 | CD | [32] | ||
United Kingdom | May 25, 1998 | [129] | ||
Japan | June 5, 1998 | CD | [130] |
Chart (2010) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australia (ARIA) [139] | 97 |
Canada (Canadian Hot 100) [140] | 60 |
Ireland (IRMA) [141] | 46 |
Scotland (OCC) [142] | 50 |
UK Singles (OCC) [143] | 62 |
US Billboard Hot 100 [144] | 76 |
Monica Denise Arnold is an American singer, rapper, songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in College Park, Georgia, she began performing as a child and joined a traveling gospel choir by the age of ten. Monica signed with record producer Dallas Austin through his label Rowdy Records in 1993, and gained prominence following the release of her debut studio album, Miss Thang (1995). Her follow-up albums were met with continued success; her second, The Boy Is Mine (1998) remains her best-selling album and spawned three Billboard Hot 100-number one singles: "The Boy Is Mine", "The First Night" and "Angel of Mine".
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"Angel of Mine" is a song by British R&B girl group Eternal from their first compilation album, Greatest Hits (1997). It was written by Rhett Lawrence and Travon Potts, produced by Lawrence, and released on 29 September 1997. The song became Eternal's 12th and final top-10 hit on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number four. "Angel of Mine" was the ensemble's final single as a three-piece, as after its release, Kéllé Bryan left the group. In June 2019, "Angel of Mine" was ranked at number 91 on the Official Charts Company's "Top 100 Girl Band Singles of the Last 25 Years".
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"Before You Walk Out of My Life" is a song by American R&B singer Monica. It was written by Andrea Martin, Carsten Schack, and Kenneth Karlin, with production helmed by Schack and Karlin under their production moniker Soulshock & Karlin. Initially helmed for fellow R&B singer Toni Braxton's Secrets (1996) album, it was left unused and later re-recorded by Monica for her debut album Miss Thang (1995). Built around drum machine-backed rhythms and a saxophone-laced beat, the mid-tempo R&B ballad was released as the album's second single on August 3, 1995, with "Like This and Like That" serving as its other half on a double A-side stateside. It is considered to be one of her signature songs.
American singer Brandy Norwood entered the music business as a backing vocalist for R&B boy bands such as Immature, prior to launching her own career in 1994. Her discography, as a solo artist, includes eight studio albums, one compilation album, one extended play, 42 singles, 46 album appearances and 28 soundtrack appearances. Norwood has sold over 8.6 million albums in the United States, and more than 40 million records worldwide. Additionally, she has won over 100 awards as a recording artist. In 1999, Billboard ranked Norwood among the top 20 of the Top Pop Artists of the 1990s.
American R&B singer Monica has released 8 studio albums, one extended play, and 48 singles. Since the beginning of her career in 1995, she has sold 5.3 million albums in the United States, In 1999, Billboard included her among the top twenty of the Top Pop Artists of the 1990s, and in 2010, the magazine ranked her 24th on its list of the Top 50 R&B and Hip Hop Artists of the past 25 years. With a career lasting over 20 years, Monica became the first artist to top the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.
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"It All Belongs to Me" is a duet by American recording artists Monica and Brandy. Written and produced by Rico Love, Earl Hood, and Eric Goudy II, the track belonged to singer R. Kelly. He then gave the song to Monica and the label presented the song to Brandy, who expressed her wish to record a duet. After Clive Davis authorized it, they went to a recording studio located in Miami, Florida to record the track. Three different versions were made, with one being released as the official lead single from Monica's seventh studio album New Life on February 10, 2012, through RCA Records. It is the first time Monica and Brandy worked together since they collaborated on "The Boy Is Mine" (1998).
Never Say Never is the second studio album by American singer Brandy. It was released on June 9, 1998, by Atlantic Records. Atlantic consulted David Foster, as well as producer Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins and his team to work with Norwood on the record; Jerkins went on to craft the majority of the album and would evolve as Norwood's mentor and head producer on her succeeding projects.
The Boy Is Mine is the second studio album by American R&B singer Monica. It was released by Arista Records on July 14, 1998, in the United States. The album deviated from the formula of her debut Miss Thang (1995) as she had more creative control over the material she recorded; a step that she considered a "natural progression". On the record, Monica worked with a variety of producers and writers from different genres such as gospel, R&B, and hip hop, including frequent collaborators Dallas Austin, Colin Wolfe, and Daryl Simmons. Additional producers included David Foster, Diane Warren, Jermaine Dupri, and Rodney Jerkins and his Darkchild crew, some of which would become household names on subsequent albums.
Japhe Tejeda is an American singer, songwriter, and producer, best known for co-writing "Don't Wanna Be a Player" and "The Boy Is Mine", as well as other various work with Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins and his brother Fred Jerkins III. Tejeda, alongside friends Jermaine Paul, Danny Martinez, and Charles Paul, were former members of the R&B vocal quartet 1 Accord, one of the first signees on Shaquille O'Neal's short-lived The World Is Mine (T.W.IsM.) imprint in collaboration with A&M Records.