Browsing through music related websites, blogs and forums today, makes you realize one thing: Mariah Carey’s duet with Miguel is a smash. Not only because of the Clear Channel stations deal the song has already reached more than 1,000 spins, but also because other stations have picked up playing “#Beautiful”. Fans download the song off of iTunes, making it chart at #7 in the US already. Blogs, which were never too fond of Mrs Carey-Cannon, praise the song and declare it as “Best New Track”. You can tell, fans (and the singers probably too) are overwhelmed. This, of course, also raises the expections for Carey’s new album, which is slated for a mid-summer release.
Although the song itself is not hard to understand (besides you’re paranoid and are into looking for subliminal messages…) there’s one thing that causes a little confusion: What the hell is the meaning of the hashtag in front of ‘Beautiful’? Well, to me, there are a few things to consider to fully answer this question.
A hashtag is a symbol most of us started using when services such as Twitter or Instagram emerged to label certain topics or waste our times participating #FollowFridays. So, it’s rather a new thing in our world. Is the song new? Yes, it is. It sounds fresh but gives us a old school vibe, so that’s rather a contradiction. Imagine this song was release 20 years ago. Yes, exactly. It’s a ridiculous fantasy to hashtag such a song with a throwback feel. Are MC and Miguel making fun of the “#” then? There are other artists who feel the need to put an hashtag in their song title. I don’t know if there are specific reasons for it but I like to think they use it because they are underlining their moderness and coolness. Because let’s be real here: Using the hashtag on a platform where it has no function, e.g. Facebook, is widely seen as immature and useless. So is there really a point in decorating your song title with it?
It is clear as well that marketers love the use of the hashtag. Every lamb (Mariah Carey fan) that tweets about “#Beautiful” automatically hashtags it and look what we got here! We’re trending globally! Yay!
Now let us take a look at the lyrics, specifically the chorus:
You’re beautiful, and your mind is f-cking beautiful
And I cant pretend that that doesnt mean a thing to me, to me, yeah
You’re beautiful, good lord, you’re f-cking beautiful
And I cant pretend that that doesnt mean a thing to me, to me, yeah
Oh, they’re using the F-word. Could this mean the “#” simply stands for “f-cking“? This could be the clue we have been looking for. Mariah is a humorous person and she has had explicit terms in her old songs but being the diva she is and for publishing an radio-friendly song, you simply can’t curse in your f-cking song. Even if you just want to emphasize on somebody’s beauty. Hence, I think the hashtag serves as a playful indication for the actual title and the other points mentioned before played a role partially when deciding on the hashtag.
Either way, just enjoy the lovely track and be happy about the fact that they are not singing “You’re hashtag beautiful, and your mind is f-cking hashtag beautiful“…
