Spotify released its annual Songs of the Summer playlist last week, but one song was notably missing from the steaming site’s list.
Amid earworms such as Fetty Wap’s Trap Queen, The Weeknd’s Can’t Feel My Face and Carly Rae Jepson’s I Really Like You, there was no room for Britney Spears and Iggy Azalea’s collaboration Pretty Girls. The song – which made it on to the Guardian’s summer playlist – didn’t live up to its billing as Fancy mark two, as it failed to crack the top 20 in the US and had middling success elsewhere.
So what went wrong? Well, the duo behind it have a few ideas and ultimately blamed the flop on each other.
During a Twitter Q&A with fans on Sunday the Australian rapper Azalea, who’s had more than her fair share of arguments on the social media site, suggested the failure of the single might have been down to Spears’s lack of commitment to promoting it.
She wrote: “It’s difficult to send a song up the charts without addition promo and TV performances etc. Unfortunately I’m just featured.”
After Britney’s fans stuck up for her, Azalea added: “My comment is factual, it applies to any song. I don’t have to suck the woman’s asshole 24/7 to be her friend, do I? Bye girls.”
She backtracked slightly later on, suggesting disagreements over how the song was promoted didn’t necessarily mean the pair have fallen out: “Genuine friends have genuine opinions. It’s possible & healthy to have a differing thought without it being bitchy or shade.”
But Britney didn’t leave it there, Tweeting a passive aggressive aside about Azalea’s cancelled tour dates while referring to her own run in Las Vegas, where she has a two-year residency at Planet Hollywood.
“Can’t wait to get back to Vegas. So thankful I have shows for the rest of the year to look forward to,” she wrote.
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