(t5!) Heroes Of The Zeroes Singles: #22: R. Kelly – Ignition [Remix] (2002)

 

• Singers, songwriters, take note: if you’re ever in shit, if you’re public image is such crap that it’s probably best to sequester yourself in a cave somewhere, just write a song as remarkable as “Ignition [Remix]” and all sins are absolved. I mean, does anyone even remember that a sextape of him with a 14-year old polluted the internets? R. Kelly could’ve pissed in the pope’s hat and “Ignition [Remix]” would still make people forget.
• “Now usually I don’t this but, uh, go ahead and break ‘em off with a little preview of the remix.” Except he goes ahead and plays the whole thing, anyway. Like, he couldn’t contain himself. Unless there’s a 12” “Ignition [Megamix]” released somewhere—and if there were, I probably would’ve slapped myself for not hearing it sooner—then this all makes sense.
• There’s something so misogynistic about comparing a girl to a vehicle—and by the same token equating vaginas to his Lexis Coupe’s ignition—but, oh well. Let me remind you that a few months back, he was prosecuted with seven counts of child pornography, and we let him get away with this song. You are being rude, R, but continue anyways.
• “Toot toot”
• “Beep Beep”
• And that suspenseful lead in to the chorus that just hangs, “Bouncin’ on 24’s, while they say on the radio.” And what thought provoking revelation did they say on the radio? “This is the remix to ignition”. Basically, the real subject matter of the song is that it describes a party where they're listening to the radio play a song describing a party where they're listening to the radio playing a a song describing a party where they're listening to the radio playing a song describing a party and, well, you get the gist.
• Big up to rum and coke. Its underappreciation in hip-hop lyrics is criminal. It’s the Alex English of alcoholic drinks.
• Forget that “freakin’” sounds so outdated, I guess he just needed it for the rhyme. Anyway, the real real subject matter of the song reveals itself on the second last line of the chorus: “It's the freakin weekend baby/I'm about to have me some fun.” It’s the ultimate weekend song. And everyone needs an ultimate weekend song, especially R. Kelly whose weekdays during the time this song was released most likely consisted of court dates and depositions and stuff like that.
• Even Michael Jackson needed a weekend song, and if there’s a weekend song as great as this existed on the radio during his unfortunate passing, things would’ve probably ended differently.
• And if you’re counting, that’s three subject matters in one song: (1) the vagina-ignition metaphor, (2) this song is the remix to “Ignition”, and (3) “it’s the freakin weekend”. The fact that he keeps changing topics, as well as the disparate elements in his style suggests that either this was the greatest accident in recent music history or, he’s a renegade genius that refuses to stick to one conventional approach. I’m leaning towards the former, but I wouldn’t rule out the latter either.
• I distinctly remember that every time they played “Ignition [Remix]” in clubs, I thought it was impossible to dance to, mainly because it’s tremendously slow. It’s like the whole dance floor goes into bullet time when this comes on. But R. Kelly gives us a mini-dance instructional session in between the chorus and the verses: “bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce.” You have to move to it in double time, Kell explains. Later on, this became the blueprint of the snap movement, which makes him a pioneer, hello?
• I don’t care who you are: an obnoxious frat boy, a stripper that has seen her best years, a quiet librarian, a shady politician, a pietistic punk girl, a former alchoholic going through his 12 steps. If you know this song, you instinctively sing along to “I’m like, so what, I’m drunk” line. If you don’t, you’re dead to me.
• Stretch Navigator! This party’s so big, a normal-sized Navigator can’t hold it.
• “And after the show, it's the afterparty/And after the party it's the hotel lobby/'Round about 4 you gotta clear the lobby/And take it to your room and ___ somebody.” Yup, you guessed right. That blank says “fuck”.
• Bounce Bounce Bounce Bounce Bounce Bounce Bounce. It's the everlasting, incalculable bliss of pop music compressed into one word repeated seven times.