Saturday, February 22, 2014

Say it isn't so: "Achy Breaky Heart 2" - The Twerking Version

02/22/2014


Buck 22, Billy Ray Cyrus' 'Achy Breaky 2' Hits Hot 100



Buck 22, Billy Ray Cyrus' 'Achy Breaky 2' Hits Hot 100
Buck 22 - Achy Breaky 2 (feat. Billy Ray Cyrus)

The rap send-up enters at No. 80, more than two decades after Cyrus' original topped Hot Country Songs.

Move over, Miley. There's a new Cyrus making waves on social media … or rather, an older one: her father, Billy Ray.

On Feb. 11, rapper Buck 22 released "Achy Breaky 2," a modernized dubstep-infused reworking of Cyrus' 1992 breakthrough smash "Achy Breaky Heart." The new version bows at No. 80 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and No. 11 on Hot Rap Songs), with nearly all its chart points owed to streaming. A total of 2.9 million U.S. YouTube streams of the song in the week ending Feb. 16, according to Nielsen BDS, spur its debut at No. 16 on the Streaming Songs chart.

The original "Achy Breaky Heart" (written by Don Von Tress) topped Hot Country Songs for five weeks and line-danced to No. 4 on the Hot 100 in 1992 (a few months before Miley was born). (Cyrus has charted 30 titles on Hot Country Songs, through his most recent in 2011).

The "Achy Breaky 2" video opens with a staged "breaking news" broadcast hosted by Larry King, who reports that an unidentified flying object is hovering over Daniel Boone National Forest over eastern Kentucky (which lies in between Nashville, Tenn., and Flatwoods, Ky., where Cyrus was born). Viewers are then transported to a spacecraft filled with (in true modern Cyrus form) scantily-clad twerking alien women.

In the clip, Cyrus asserts himself as the patriarch of Miley's twerking empire, exclaiming "wrecking ball!" after Buck 22 raps, "Miley's still twerkin', daddy's song is workin' … now Billy sing that crazy hook again!"
Despite the song's hyper-novelty value, Buck 22 is well-accomplished producer Damon Elliott, the son of jazz musician Bill Elliott and actress Dionne Warwick. He's produced for P!nk, Christina Aguilera, Beyonce and Destiny's Child and produced songs for soundtracks including 2002's "Austin Powers in Goldmember."

Elliott reportedly approached Cyrus about remaking the song. An intrigued Cyrus then decided to lay down the vocals and appear in the video.

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