We analyse the latest Number One Australian single so you don't have to. This week, Snoop Dogg's 'Sweat', as remixed by David Guetta.
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Snoop Dogg
Sweat (David Guetta Remix)
(Capitol/EMI)
'Sweat (David Guetta Remix)' by Snoop Dogg is this week's new Australian #1 single. It replaces
J-Lo and Pitbull's 'On The Floor' after 3 weeks at the top. 'Sweat (David Guetta Remix)' is Snoop's third #1 single in Australia, after 'Signs' (credited to Snoop Dogg featuring Charlie Wilson and Justin Timberlake) and 'California Gurls' (credited to Katy Perry featuring Snoop Dogg). It's David Guetta's second Australian #1 single, after 'Sexy Bitch' featuring Akon; you may also be painfully aware of the gigantically successful Black Eyed Peas song 'I Gotta Feeling', which Guetta also produced.
Snoop Dogg - 'Sweat' (David Guetta remix)
Snoop Dogg has had an extraordinarily long career in the pop charts for a rapper; Snoop's first single,
'What's My Name', in 1993, was
18 years ago. To get a sense of how long ago this was, there's a parody of 'What's My Name' called
'Ice Froggy Frog' in the 1993 Spinal-Tap-of-hip-hop movie
Fear Of A Black Hat, alongside parodies and pastiches of acts like Public Enemy, PM Dawn, C&C Music Factory, and MC Hammer. All acts whose chart success didn't last much longer than 1993. The only rappers whose run in the charts are nearly as impressive as Snoop Dogg's, are LL Cool J, whose career spanned from 1987's
'I Need Love' to 2006's 'Control Myself', and Dr Dre, who first started rapping on NWA's 1991 album
Efil4zaggin and is currently at #12 with the track 'I Need A Doctor'.
By now, Snoop can be recognised as one of the most influential names in hip-hop. He was discovered in the early '90s by producer Dr. Dre, and his peculiar calm rapping style fit perfectly over the West Coast G-Funk style that Dre essentially invented - as seen on his hugely influential 1992 album
The Chronic. Snoop's verses on songs like 'Fuck Wit Dre Day' and 'Bitches Ain't Shit' are often the best thing on the album – he even manages to rap the phrase
'bow-wow-wow, yippie-o, yippie-yay' several times without it sounding totally ridiculous. After
The Chronic and Snoop's 1993 album,
Doggystyle, the West Coast G-Funk style they originated was omnipresent for a few years – see
'Regulate' by Warren G and Nate Dogg or
'California Love' by 2Pac and Dr Dre. I mean, even
MC Hammer's 'Pumps And A Bump' (which very often gets into lists of the worst songs ever) apes the G-Funk style. And Snoop's influence didn't stop in 1993; no less a figure than John Cale (the Velvet Underground member with avant-garde classical training, whose version of 'Hallelujah' inspired Jeff Buckley's) has claimed in numerous places that Snoop's 2004 collaboration with the Neptunes,
'Drop It Like It's Hot', is one of his favourite pieces of minimalist music, and that which gave him much inspiration.
Anyway, there are two versions of 'Sweat', each with nearly identical video clips – the original version, and the David Guetta remix. It's the David Guetta remix at the top of the charts; the original version of 'Sweat' sounds radically different, more along the minimalist lines of 'Drop It Like It's Hot' than the typically stomping Guetta mix.
David Guetta relaxing at home
The original starts off with a sample of what sounds like Indonesian gamelans, before Snoop sing-speaks, slathered with Kanye-style auto-tune, over the most minimal of syncopated beats. There are surprisingly large sections of the song where the only thing audible is the echo of vocal samples and a subterranean beat. The auto-tune in the original version of 'Sweat' is, dare I say it, used in interesting ways; Snoop's distinctive vocal tones almost survive the robotic overlay, but midway through the song they start pushing Snoop's vocals harder, causing them to stutter and wobble.
Snoop Dogg - 'Sweat' (original version)
While the lyrics to 'Sweat' are not Snoop's most imaginative work, they arey quite amusing. Like
Inner Circle '92 track 'Sweat (A La La Long)', Snoop spends a lot of time discussing how he is especially satisfied when the sweat glands of a female Homo Sapien produce perspiration. Snoop's desire for female sweat causes him to allude to various methods he uses in order to promote the production of sweat - generally involving very few Zumba classes, and quite a lot of sex.
"There's only one thing we can do to stop the drought", he sings.
"Come with me / we can take a trip down south / I can tell she's thirsty / I'm in the hole like a birdie". These lines may actually be about jumping into a cleansing pool in the lower regions of US in the hope it might promote rainfall, but one suspects that the less discerning will take it as an indication that cunnilingus increases the female desire for intercourse. Considering the sizzling innuendo levels elsewhere in the song, one does get the distinct impression that the 'sweat' Dogg seeks to promote may also include -
*ahem* - the body's own lubricant.
(Continued next page)