If you open up Paris Hilton radio on Spotify, you are greeted with a whole host of pop star royalty; Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, and Nelly Furtado to name a few. If artists that did so well in the early 2000s pop sphere are being recognised as Hilton’s peers, why is it that nobody ever took Paris as a serious venture into the music world? Is it the fact that Hilton was born into an empire that gave her the opportunity to explore any avenue that she pleased that caused people to discount it as a rich girl playing? Is it the fact it is heavily auto tuned and written by other people? Are people just not a fan of an heiress covering Rod Stewart?
For the sake of the argument I am making, I would like to preface that I will be referencing “nostalgic pop” throughout this piece. This term I am using to mean the sort of pop song that was prevalent throughout the late 90s and early 00s meaning that young millennials and members of generation Y were surrounded by it growing up. This pop music may not be heralded as quite so musically important as the likes of The Beatles, but if you fall into these age groups, it’s not been a proper party until you hear Whigfield’s ‘Saturday Night’ or ‘It Wasn’t Me’ by Shaggy and Rikrok. If it has a dance routine or one of those choruses you have no memory of learning but it is ingrained somewhere deep within you, it probably falls into the “nostalgic pop” category.
Arguably, ‘Stars Are Blind’ is Hilton’s most famous single being both her 2006 debut and highest charting song to date. The distinctive tropical melody is something that seems to evoke a groan from most people I know as soon as the track starts playing but this style of song is not unusual, particularly if we’re looking nostalgic pop. Two of the most famous singles that you could compare to ‘Stars Are Blind’ are Shaggy’s ‘Angel’ and Peter Andre’s ‘Mysterious Girl’. Both ‘Mysterious Girl’ and ‘Angel’ peaked at number 1 in the UK after their 1995 and 2000 releases respectively and both open up with that distinctive beach-holiday-inspired sound while ‘Stars Are Blind’ only ever reached number 5. While Peter Andre’s musical career since ‘Mysterious Girl’ definitely trailed off, it’s hard to find somebody in the UK, especially in the aforementioned age groups, who isn’t aware of this single whereas Hilton’s single never seemed to permeate the brains of the public quite so much, only enough to evoke complaints or cause people to skip the song. ‘Angel’ however seems to have maintained a level of hold over the general public which could be due to the fact the massively successful ‘It Wasn’t Me’ was released in the same year meaning that Shaggy was fully inserted into public consciousness in a way that Hilton wasn’t since the infamous “One Night in Paris” scandal of 2004 still seems to be what she is most remembered for.
One of the tracks that I think best epitomises the fact that this album is full of 00s pop classics is ‘Fightin’ Over Me’ featuring Fat Joe and Jadakiss; this is honestly such a similar song to ‘Don’t Cha’ by The Pussycat Dolls featuring Busta Rhymes. Where 'Don't Cha' had an obvious advantage over 'Fightin' Over Me' is that it was released as a single and once again, peaked at number 1 in the UK. ‘Don’t Cha’ was the 4th best selling single of 2005 in the UK and is still a staple for pop club nights and having the girls round and yet ‘Fightin’ Over Me’ is an overlooked track on an album that is quickly dismissed.
If you're not a fan of this very much early 00s pop, then I probably would not rush into Paris expecting anything brilliant but if you are, it's genuinely worth a listen. Once you put aside any sort of preconceived notion of what an album by Hilton would be like, it is genuinely an album that exemplifies all of the typical pop tropes of the era. Plus, there is always the cover of 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy' that seems to make people irrationally angry to look forward to.
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