Hollaback Girl
"Hollaback Girl" is a song by American singer-songwriter Gwen Stefani from her debut solo studio album, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004). It is a hip-hop song that draws influence from 1980s hip-hop and dance music. The song was written by Stefani, Pharrell Williams, and Chad Hugo, with the latter two handling production as the Neptunes. The song was released as the album's third single on March 22, 2005, and was one of the year's most popular songs, peaking inside the top 10 of the majority of the charts it entered. It reached number one in Australia and the United States, where it became the first digital download to sell one million copies.
"Hollaback Girl"
March 22, 2005
2004[1]
Right Track Recording (New York City)
3:19
- Gwen Stefani
- Pharrell Williams
- Chad Hugo
"Hollaback Girl" received several award nominations, including Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Record of the Year at the 48th Grammy Awards; however, it lost in both categories. The song divided pop music critics, with some praising its minimalistic production and others declaring it embarrassing. The men's magazine Maxim named it as the "Most Annoying Song Ever". In the United States, the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks – it was ranked at number two on the Year-End Hot 100. The single topped the charts in Australia and reached the top-ten in several other countries, including Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. It has since been certified five-times Platinum in United States by the RIAA, and in Australia by the ARIA.
A music video with Stefani as a cheerleader at a California high school was released on March 21, 2005, and was directed by Paul Hunter. The video received four nominations at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards, and ultimately won for Best Choreography. Stefani has performed "Hollaback Girl" on numerous occasions, including on all three of her concert tours, and on several televised appearances.
Composition and musical style[edit]
"Hollaback Girl" is a hip-hop song that draws influence from 1980s hip-hop and dance music.[12][13] It is a moderately fast song (with a tempo of 110 beats per minute) and it is played in the key of D♯ minor.[14] Like the majority of pop music, it is set in common time. The main chord pattern of the song alternates between B major and D♯ minor triads.[14] Most of the harmonic content of the song revolves around a two-chord alternation which music theorists may regard as an L (leading tone) transformation, in which the root of the major chord is lowered by a half-step to form a second inversion minor chord on the third scale degree, a slight tonicization of B major, but resolving back to D♯ minor by having the same A♯, a perfect fourth down from D♯. This stepwise motion between B and A♯ highlights this chord change. The song is in verse-chorus form with a bridge before the fourth and last chorus. The song features sparse instrumentation, primarily a minimal beat produced by drum machine.[15][16][17] A guitar plays the song's riff, a six-note pattern as Stefani repeats "this my shit" during the chorus, and a brass section joins during the second chorus.[9] In part because of its cheerleading motif, it drew comparisons to Toni Basil's 1981 song "Mickey".[18][19]
Commercial performance[edit]
"Hollaback Girl" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 82 on the issue dated April 2, 2005,[32] and within six weeks of its release, it had reached the top of the chart,[33] becoming Stefani's first and only US number one.[34] It ended the nine-week run of 50 Cent's "Candy Shop" featuring Olivia, and maintained the number-one position for four consecutive weeks.[35] "Hollaback Girl" ranked second on the 2005 Hot 100 year-end chart.[36] The song held the record for most US radio airplays in one week, with 9,582 plays, and maintained this record for over a year before Shakira and Wyclef Jean's "Hips Don't Lie" overtook the position.[37] "Hollaback Girl" peaked at number one on the Billboard Pop 100 chart for eight weeks and at number 15 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart.[38][39] The song was a crossover success and reached number four on the Rhythmic Top 40 and number eight on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.[40][41]
"Hollaback Girl" was noted for having a large number of digital downloads, becoming the first single to sell more digital downloads than CDs.[42] In October 2005, "Hollaback Girl" was the first single to ever sell one million digital downloads and later went on to sell a total of 1.2 million downloads.[42][43] It was certified six-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. It was later re-certified platinum, for the same sales, due to the change of the RIAA certification criteria for singles.[44][45][a] On the year-end list for Hot Digital Songs in 2005, "Hollaback Girl" topped the chart.[47]
"Hollaback Girl" was successful in Canada, where the song debuted and peaked at number 12 on the Canadian Singles Chart.[48] However, Graham Henderson, president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), later argued that based on Canada's population relative to the US, the single should have sold around 120,000 copies and that the comparatively lower sales of 25,000 were a sign that the Canadian copyright law should be tightened to discourage non-commercial peer-to-peer file sharing.[49] Columnist Michael Geist disputed the comparison, arguing that the Canadian online music market was still developing.[50] The song was released in Australia on May 23, 2005,[51] debuting at number one on the ARIA Singles Chart,[52] and in Europe on June 6, 2005, reaching number five on the European Hot 100 Singles.[53] In the United Kingdom, "Hollaback Girl" was released on the same day,[54] but it did not perform as well as Stefani's previous releases. The song's predecessors, "What You Waiting For?" and "Rich Girl", had both reached number four, while "Hollaback Girl" debuted at number eight and remained at the same position the following week.[55] Although its UK success was limited, it remained in the top 40 for an additional 11 weeks.[55] The single was largely successful across Europe, reaching the top five in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Ireland, and the top 10 in Belgium, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland.[56]
Live performances[edit]
Stefani has performed "Hollaback Girl" on several occasions, including on two of her concert tours, in addition to several appearances on TV shows. During the majority of the 2005 Harajuku Lovers Tour, Stefani sang the single as an encore performance, where she wore a drumming costume and encouraged the audience to sing along with her.[69] However, in earlier shows, before the single's success, she sang it before tracks "Serious" and "Bubble Pop Electric".[70][71] During The Sweet Escape Tour, she performed the song in the middle of the show wearing sparkly red shorts and an argyle jacket atop a L.A.M.B. black and white shirt. She also sported a belt buckle featuring the "G" motif frequently used in The Sweet Escape.[72]
When Stefani agreed to be a judge on season 7 of the NBC music competition The Voice, she sang the track in May 2014 alongside Pharrell, who would also be appearing on the show as a judge.[73] For the rendition, Stefani wore a black jumpsuit in contrast to Pharrell, who wore a Mickey Mouse-sweater and jeans.[74][75] The performance prompted the song to enter the Billboard Pop Digital Songs component chart, where it re-entered at number thirty-four.[76] On the May 4, 2016, episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden, Stefani sang a snippet of the song alongside James Corden in his show's segment "Carpool Karaoke".[77] In addition to Stefani and Corden, actor George Clooney and actress Julia Roberts sang along; when the song concluded, Clooney stated "this [bleep]'s bananas".[78] More recently, the single was included on her 2016 concert series This Is What the Truth Feels Like Tour.[79] On November 27, 2019, Stefani performed "Hollaback Girl", alongside "What You Waitin’ For" and "Rich Girl", in a medley on The Voice in season 17 to commemorate Love. Angel. Music. Baby.'s 15th anniversary.[80]
Remixes and cover versions[edit]
Diplo made a remix for the track after M.I.A. turned down an offer to produce one.[142] Tony Kanal, fellow No Doubt member, also produced a remix titled the Dancehollaback Remix. The track features reggae singer Elan Atias, whose debut album Kanal produced.[143] It appears as a single on iTunes, on the CD single for "Cool",[144] and on the bonus CD of the deluxe edition of Love. Angel. Music. Baby.[145] Stefani later requested to contribute vocals on "I Wanna Yell" from Atias's debut album Together as One,[146] and was featured on his song "Allnighter".[147]
Rumoredly, Weird Al had plans to do with his new album Straight Outta Lynwood in 2006, called "Holodeck Girl", but it never came to fruition. Later that year, Gabe Saporta of Cobra Starship recorded a parody of the song titled "Hollaback Boy".[148] Stefani also performed a "countrified version" of Hollaback Girl part of a skit on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon where Fallon portrayed the character Buck Pinto promoting a fictitious album Gwen's Gone Country.[149]