Forever No. 1: Crazy Town's “Butterfly”

Forever #1 it is one Advertising sign series that pays special tribute to recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single — taking an extensive look back at the chart-topping songs that made them part of that exclusive club. Here, we honor late Crazy Town frontman Shifty Shellshock by looking at their only No. 1 as a group: the stunningly beautiful and sweet rap-rock staple “Butterfly.”

By 2001, rap-rock and nu-metal had long conquered the world. From mid-90s Rage Against the Machine and the Beastie Boys instrumental era, to the late-90s takeover of KoRn and Limp Bizkit and the finally diamond-certified breakthrough of Linkin's debut LP Park in 2000. Hybrid theory, bands that mix loud guitars with aggressive rhymes and plenty of drive, has grown into a truly huge part of the music industry. They were polluting TRL and dominated Woodstock '99 and terrorized your younger Backstreet and Britney-loving siblings. But they didn't reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 until Crazy Town.

To some extent, this is not surprising. The dawn to dusk of the entire nu-metal era occurred when radio was still king of the charts, and specifically top 40 airplay formed the shape of the Hot 100. Many of the genre's biggest bands were heavy and hard enough that it had a hard time even secure regular alternative rock airplay, leave the crossover playlist to the pop stations. These groups often outscored the pop hitmakers at the top of the Hot 100, but did not pose a particularly formidable threat to their airplay supremacy. This was especially true because, unlike the hair metal era of the late 80s and early 90s—the previous period when hard rock played an apparently central role in mainstream music—few, if any of these bands made room for power ballads or love songs between their ragers, the kind of songs that could expand both their radio reach and demographic appeal. In other (highly reductive) words, none of these angry young dude bands wrote songs about women.

Crazy Town did, though. Or at least, they wrote one, for one woman: “Butterfly,” written by the band's frontman Seth Binzer — known professionally as Shifty Shellshock, who died this week at age 49 — was inspired by a new girlfriend who made him take a second look at his traditionally misogynistic lyrical content. “I was in love [with her,] and he was asking, “What's up with all these verses? Is that how you are?' Shellshock recalled to Fred Bronson The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. “So that made me think of the idea of ​​writing a song for her. Instead of writing a male chauvinist song, I was going to write something nice and sweet to a girl I cared about.”

The lyrics of “Butterfly” are indeed nice and sweet – especially compared to previous Crazy Town singles like “Toxic” (“F–k the reviews, we leave them hanging like INXS”) and “Darkside” (“Unearthin “untamed perversity/ My wicked brain is at work,” released). Instead, “Butterfly” celebrates the titular interest with a series of simply romantic and decently heartfelt lyric tributes (“I used to think happy endings were only in the books I read/ But you made me feel alive when I was almost dead”) and a chorus (“You're my butterfly, sugar baby”) worthy of The Archies. A few questionable couplets, notably one from co-frontman Brett “Epic” Mazur comparing him and would-be punk lovers Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen — who died of a murder-suicide at the former's hand — always opened the song on Terribly bad type nerves. But as far as 21st century mainstream rock love songs go, it's actually pretty touching.

More crucial than the lyrics, though, was this song heard especially nice and sweet. While the vast majority of signature nu-metal anthems have been confrontational head-bangers, the tempo of “Butterfly” is a slow and low shuffle, with the scratch of the record mostly contained to a background flourish. And while no one could mistake Shellshock's rap star for one from 98 Degrees, his performances wisely come closer to polite invitation than insistence. the most impressive vocals in the entire song come via complementary languid backing whispers on the hook (“you drive me crazy….“)

But what really gives 'Butterfly' its wings is the Red Hot Chili Peppers sample. In fact, in terms of both inspiration and utility, you could argue that it's one of the 10 most important pop samples of the entire 21st century — it's hard to think of too many other such big hits where fragrance was so crucial to the makeup of the song as much as why it took off. Especially since its source is simultaneously incredibly obvious (a bunch of mostly shirtless SoCal rap-rockers who find kinship with an RHCP track, duh) and extremely dark: The piercing bass, weightless guitars and sunrise horns of “Butterfly” come not from one of the Chili Peppers' hits, but from a deep pre-crossover 1989 track called “Pretty Little Ditty “, a disorientingly beautiful four-meter pattern that materializes briefly in the middle of the song and disappears for good soon after.

While the mini-groove was just a glimmer of divinity in the original “Ditty,” it forms the entire musical backbone of “Butterfly,” running throughout the track. Mazur admitted to Bronson that he never expected to get the clearance sample, given the band's traditional reticence to approve such recycling of their songs, saying, “If we had to fight to clear it or they didn't like it, we would have come with some other music”. It's completely impossible to imagine any version of “Butterfly” without the full “Ditty” sample, though—everything about the song's special alchemy hinges not just on the sample's melodies and sonics, but on the embedded (and live ) Chili Pepper benchmark.

However, with the heavenly sample highlighting Shellshock's kiss-sealed lyrics — and a perfect accompanying visual to the lush, pleasantly psychedelic music video co-starring eventual wife Melissa Clark — “Butterfly” soared higher than any other Hit RHCP. While the latter band's power ballad “Under the Bridge” stalled at No. 2 on the Hot 100 (behind Kris Kross' “Jump”), Crazy Town's breakout hit was all the way to No. 1 on the March 24 chart. 2001, replacing Joe's “Stutter” at the top. It then gave way to Shaggy and Rayvon's 'Angel' – another romantic ode based on a lovey-dovey-all-the-time rock lift – before regaining the top spot and then ceding it for good to Janet's No.1 Jackson for seven weeks “All for you.”

“Butterfly” was not only Crazy Town's only visit to the top spot on the Hot 100, but it was their only appearance on the entire chart. Gift Gab The follow-up to “Revolving Door” entered the Official UK Singles Chart in the top 40 and “Drowning” (from 2002's second LP Black Horse) gained some rock airplay, but the group was never interested in attempting another “Butterfly” and broke up soon after Black Horse. Shellshock had better luck outside the group, scoring another great summer smash with the Paul Oakenfold-led dance-rock skate, along with “Starry-Eyed Surprise,” which peaked just outside the Hot 100's top 40 and entered the UK top 10. He scored another minor hit with the solo 'Slide Along Side' (as simply Shifty), but his music career was largely sidelined by substance abuse. when he returned to music television in the late '00s, it was as a cast member on VH1's Celebrity rehabilitation.

But even if “Butterfly” were the lone pillar of Shellshock's musical legacy, it would still be solid. The song's sunny, mixed-up composition and undeniably period sound and vision have made it an enduringly iconic snapshot of its era — further aided by its extensive use in early '00s comedies such as Saving Silverman and Orange County and TV shows like Daria and Undeclared. And while later smashes from Linkin Park, Evanescence and Staind were able to reach the top five on the Billboard Hot 100, “Butterfly” remains unaccompanied in its perch, still the only nu-metal song to top the chart on his story.