Released at the tail-end of the summer of 2006, TV Rock’s ‘Flaunt It’ became the first Australian dance single to top the mainstream ARIA chart since Madison Avenue did it back in 1999 with their imperishable office Christmas party classic ‘Don’t Call Me Baby’.
The track, a remixer’s candy shop made up of a winding bassline over which vocalist Seany B spat lines like “This track’s designed to make you cream”, entered the ARIA singles chart at #3, climbing to #2, and hitting the top spot the following week.
It then spent four consecutive weeks at #1, before being supplanted by Youth Group’s cover of ‘Forever Young’ and then returning to the top for a fifth week. With the success of the tune, TV Rock, made up of Aussie dance veterans Grant Smilie and Ivan Gough, went on the promo trail.
This included making a music video, which, by all accounts, was absolutely terrible. The clip featured Smillie and Gough remaining stationary in front of their gear and Seany B in a series of poorly lit extreme close-ups rapidly cut together.
Interspersed was footage of women writhing amongst lights that had apparently been set up inside of someone’s tool shed. Occasionally, excerpts from the lyrics flashed on screen. The video, which you can check out below, certainly didn’t belie its budget.
But the video, easily one of the worst ever to come out of Australia and perhaps the worst ever for a #1 Australian song, is simply a symbol of the unlikely success of the track, which Gough and Smillie released independently after no label wanted to touch it.
“With our first single, ‘Flaunt It’, no-one wanted to sign it,” the duo told Girl. “We put it out to all the major record labels and they all said no. I think it’s about people not accepting other people’s music.”
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Without any interest from the major labels, Smillie and Gough went indie and launched their own label, Bimbo Rock, with the hope of perhaps selling a few hundred copies of ‘Flaunt It’ to DJs and those in the dance underground.
“So in the end we created our own independent label and produced ‘Flaunt It’ for ourselves, it ended up a success. It’s just who believes in your music. ‘Flaunt It’ debuted in the Australian charts at number two then went to number one the following week.”
Ultimately, ‘Flaunt It’ stayed in the Top 10 of the Australian charts for 22 consecutive weeks, making it at the time the longest Top 10 charting single ever by an Australian artist, beating out the likes of Silverchair, for whom ‘Tomorrow’ spent a total of 19 consecutive weeks in the Top 10.
The single sold 130,000 physical units, 40,000 digital downloads, and a further 65,000 ringtones, which were all the rage at the time. The single was also a success in New Zealand, debuting at #17 before making the jump to the Top 3 in its second week.
So the next time you happen to catch the ‘Flaunt It’ video on Rage and find yourself taken aback by its undeniable crappiness, just remember that that crappiness is a symbol of two independent Australian musicians doing it for themselves and finding immense success.
