How Was It Being Alive During The We Belong Together #1 Run?

[salt]

I remember my mom changing the station every single time it came on. It was then that I learned that her least favorite singer ever was Mariah Carey. I can't say I agree, though I didn't completely live through the 90s onslaught of her music being everywhere.

[Caviar]

I remember the run well. It was played at ALL the clubs back then. I got sick of it.

[Hefty Hanna]

It literally gave all of us life in 2005. Best year ever.

[NeRD]

On radio ALL THE TIME.

And I loved every second of the domination.

[Groovy]

I don't even remember it being a hit maybe because I was 6 at the time but I don't remember hearing it on the radio at all but my sister had the album so I heard it there.

[Dadude#0839]

I was literally born during it’s #1 run-

[Kris]

I don't know if it wasn't as big here in Canada or if it wasn't played a lot by people in high school but I have no memory of ever hearing this song, I actually didn't know what it was until 2010 when I started following charts.

[Fat Ass Kelly Price]

I was twelve. 💀 I knew who Mariah was (one of my earliest music memories is seeing the Honey video), but had zero framework for just how big of a deal it was that WBT was this big. But I could not escape the song. I also could not ignore the song. Anytime it was on, I had to activate the dramatics at the climax. Good times.

[daneeis]

New member here!
I turned 11 that summer. I didn't realize how big of a hit it was at the time. When I first heard it, I thought the beat sounded too similar to "Lovers and Friends" (which was inescapable in fall 04-early 05). I have more fond memories of other singles from TEOM. I remember singing ILT with my classmates, watching the making of SIO video on Access Granted. I LOVE DFAU. It remains one of my favorite Mariah Carey songs. It makes me nostalgic and takes me back to 6th grade.

[back2blk]

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I wasn't sure if I was in love with WBT when I first heard it because I had not transitioned to beat ballads just yet; and she was serving a ballad unlike we've heard from her in a while. What I did know was that the bridge climax of the song was something truly remarkable - and I was always curious if it was one she could hit live.

Once it hit #1, I just stopped keeping up with its numbers, it was everywhere. I spent most of Charmbracelet shamefully continuing to stan her, knowing it was just not cool to be a fan of hers anymore during that era. So it was extremely freeing to see her succeeding, and with one of the BEST albums of her career. As fantastic as it was to see WBT hit number one, when you couple that with the success of the album that same year, DFAU going #1, SIO getting close, her looks, her videos, the entire era contributed to the greatness that WBT's #1 run was.

[irice22]

Here's my experience: It kinda did seem to cause quite the stir at my high school as it did on the internet. If you weren't into pop music, you didn't really know it existed. Though people were very much aware Mariah was having a comeback.

[Positive Tension]

I remember reading about it being a big hit before I really heard it on the radio, as I was only just starting to follow the charts. When I first heard it, I was underwhelmed whereas I had taken to "It's Like That" right away, but it obviously grew on me. It was really the success of this song that got me to follow "Shake It Off" because I remember Googling "Shake It Off" to see if it had a chance to hit number 1. That's how I found Pulse, and I joined not long after.

[SSP]

It was out during the year I first started charting, actually. It got to #2 for me; I deliberately had it peak there since it was getting #1 everywhere else!

[Verisimilitude]

Oct 31, 2020 4:54:52 GMT -5 Au$tin said:

Oct 31, 2020 3:52:55 GMT -5 Codex said:

Did it flop in Canada? I was 10 but barely remember it

Nope, a hit there too. I'm not sure what chart to look at for that, but I do see it reached #1 on the MuchMusic top 30. It never was #1 on the Billboard Canada chart, but I'm not even sure if the song was eligible at the time.

The Canadian Hot 100 didn't exist yet in 2005. On the Canadian Top 100 Radio Airplay Chart from Nielsen BDS, We Belong Together peaked at #2 for 3 weeks and overall spending 55 weeks in the top 100. Since We Belong Together was never released as a physical single in Canada, it never charted on the singles chart comprised of sales at the time and Nielsen hadn't published a downloads chart just yet at the time.

[Groovy]

It's funny cause we're gonna have to do this with Old Town Road too, one of the most inescapable songs of the 2010s.

[mkarns]

It was generally all right, except for my car going kaput that summer after 8 1/2 years and having to find a way to choose and finance a new one.

Except for being gradually more infuriated at Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc., for their mishandling of the Iraq War (aided by the fact that I loathed the Bush administration and almost all its works, and even that doesn't match what I think of the thankfully soon to be gone Trump), accentuated by Cindy Sheehan's gradually growing protest, and then flat-out outraged and saddened by Hurricane Katrina and the complete botch made of it by government at all levels.