"Hey Ya!" is a song written and produced by André 3000 for
his 2003 album
The Love Below, part of the hip hop duo OutKast's double
album
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. The song takes influence
from funk and rock music. A music video was produced featuring
André 3000 as eight different versions of himself, playing on
comparisons to The Beatles by mimicking their 1964 performance
on
The Ed Sullivan Show. The song received praise from
contemporary music critics, and it won a Grammy Award for Best
Urban/Alternative Performance at the 46th Grammy Awards.
Along with "The Way You Move", recorded by OutKast's other
member Big Boi, "Hey Ya!" was released by LaFace Records in
September 2003 as one of the album's two lead singles. It
became a commercial success, reaching the top five of most of
the charts it entered, and topping the
BillboardHot 100 and the ARIA Singles Chart, among
others. Later it was named the 20th most successful song of the
2000s, on the
BillboardHot 100 Songs of the Decade. The song
popularized the phrase "shake it like a Polaroid picture" in
popular culture, and the Polaroid Corporation used the song to
revitalize the public's perception of its products.
André 3000 first began work on "Hey Ya!" in December 2002 at
Stankonia Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. He used an acoustic
guitar for accompaniment, inspired by bands such as the
Ramones, Buzzcocks, and The Smiths. Already having visualized
most of the song, he recorded the introduction, the first
verse, and the hook. André began recording the vocals during
this time, doing several dozen takes. He returned to work on
the song several evenings later, with session musician Kevin
Kendricks performing the bassline on a synthesizer.
Several months later, André 3000 worked with Pete Novak at
the Larrabee Sound Studios in Los Angeles, California. André
improvised the lyrics based on a screenplay that he had
written. They experimented with various sound effects,
including singing through a vocoder, and did 30 to 40 takes for
each line.
"Hey Ya!" is a song in the key of G major. Each cadential
six-measure phrase is constructed using a change of meter on
the fourth measure and uses a I–IV–V–VI chord progression. G
major and C major chords are played for one and two 4/4
measures respectively. André 3000 then uses a deceptive cadence
after a 2/4 measure of the dominant D major chord, leading into
two 4/4 measures of an E major chord. The song moves at 160
beats per minute, and André's vocal range spans more than an
octave and a half, from B
3to G
5.
The song opens with three upbeats as André 3000 counts "one,
two, three" and then leads into the first verse. The lyrics
begin to describe the persona's concerns and doubts about a
romantic relationship. He wonders if they are staying together
just "for tradition," as in the lines "But does she really
wanna [mess around] / But can't stand to see me / Walk out the
door?" André 3000 commented, "I think it's more important to be
happy than to meet up to…the world's expectations of what a
relationship should be. So this is a celebration of how men and
women relate to each other in the 2000s." The song then leads
into the chorus, which consists of the line "Hey ya!" repeated
eight times, accompanied by a synthesizer performing the
bassline.
During the second verse, the persona gets cold feet and
wonders what the purpose of continuing the relationship is,
pondering the question, "If they say nothing is forever…then
what makes love the exception?" After repeating the chorus, the
song leads into a call and response section. André 3000 jokes,
"What's cooler than being cool?", and the "fellas'" response,
an overdubbed version of his vocals, is "Ice cold", a reference
to one of André Benjamin's stage names. He then calls to the
"ladies", whose response is overdubbed from vocals by Rabeka
Tuinei, who was an assistant to the audio engineer.
The song's breakdown coined the phrase "shake it like a
Polaroid picture," a reference to an erroneous technique used
by some photographers to expedite instant film. Early versions
of the film needed to be dried, and shaking the picture helped
it to dry faster. The breakdown also namechecks singer Beyoncé
and actress Lucy Liu. The song closes by repeating the chorus
ad libitumand gradually fading out.
"Hey Ya!" received very positive reviews from music critics.
PopMattersdescribed the track as "brilliantly rousing"
and "spazzy with electrifying multiplicity".
Entertainment Weeklyhighlighted it as the catchiest song
on the double album, and
Stylus Magazineidentified it as one of the best songs in
OutKast's history. "Hey Ya!" topped the 2003 Pazz & Jop
list, a survey of several hundred music critics conducted by
Robert Christgau, with 322 mentions, beating runner-up Beyoncé
Knowles' "Crazy in Love" by 119. It was listed at number
fifteen on
Blender's 2005 list of "The 500 Greatest Songs Since You
Were Born".
The song's unusual arrangement drew comparisons to artists
from a variety of genres. Pitchfork Media referred to it as the
apex of the album and added that it successfully mixed Flaming
Lips-style instrumentation with the energy of Prince's 1983
single "Little Red Corvette". Subsequently, Pitchfork Media
gave it the number two slot in its "The Top 100 Singles of
2000-2004" feature in January 2005, bested only by OutKast's
own "B.O.B.".
Blenderdescribed it as a mix of soul music by Ike Turner
and New Wave music by Devo and later as an
"electro/folk-rock/funk/power pop/hip-hop/neo-soul/kitchen sink
rave-up".
Rolling Stonecompared André 3000's vocals to those of
"an indie-rock Little Richard" and the backing arrangement to
The Beatles' 1969 album
Abbey Road, later including the song in its 500 Greatest
Songs of All Time.
New Yorkalso likened it to The Beatles and found it to
be one of the best singles of 2003. Allmusic described it as an
"incandescent" mix of electro, funk, and soul music.
NMElikened trying to classify the song as "akin to
trying to lasso water" and described it as "a monumental barney
between the Camberwick Green brass band, a cruise-ship cabaret
act, a cartoon gospel choir and a sucker MC hiccuping '
Shake it like a polaroid pic-chaaaa!' backed up by the
cast of an amateur production of The Wizard of Oz. Sort of."
This song was number four on
Rolling Stone's 2009 list of the 50 Best Songs of the
Decade.
"Hey Ya!" was successful in North America, topping the
BillboardHot 100 for nine weeks, from December 6, 2003
to January 31, 2004. The digital sales topped the
BillboardHot Digital Tracks for nineteen weeks. The song
performed well in urban contemporary markets, topping the
Rhythmic Top 40 chart and reaching number nine on the Hot
R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. It was also successful in
mainstream music, topping the Top 40 Mainstream and Top 40
Tracks and reaching number thirteen on the Adult Top 40. The
song's pop rock origins allowed it some crossover success, and
it reached number sixteen on the Modern Rock Tracks. In
September 2005, the Recording Industry Association of America
certified the single triple platinum for shipping three million
copies. At the 46th Grammy Awards, the song won Best
Urban/Alternative Performance and was nominated for Record of
the Year, but lost to Coldplay's "Clocks". "Hey Ya!" also
topped the Canadian Singles Chart.
The song performed well in Europe, though not as strong as
in the U.S. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number six on
the UK Singles Chart and peaked at number three after twelve
weeks, remaining on the chart for a total of twenty-one weeks.
"Hey Ya!" topped the Norwegian singles chart for seven weeks,
and it reached the top in Sweden for the first week of 2004. It
performed well across the continent, reaching the top ten in
Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, and
Switzerland.
"Hey Ya!" debuted at number seventeen on Australia's ARIA
Singles Chart, eventually topping the chart for two consecutive
weeks. The song remained on the chart for sixteen weeks and was
certified double platinum by the Australian Recording Industry
Association. The song charted at number sixty-one for the 2003
end of year chart and was listed at number fifteen on the 2004
chart and number five on the 2004 urban chart. It was also
successful in New Zealand, reaching number two and staying on
the RIANZ Singles Chart for twenty-three weeks.
The lyric "shake it like a Polaroid picture", along with the
song's commercial success, helped to revitalize the Polaroid
Corporation. Because current Polaroid film is sealed behind a
clear plastic window, casually waving the picture has no effect
on the film's development. Vigorously shaking the film may
actually distort the image by causing the film to separate
prematurely and creating blobs in the final image.
Nevertheless, Polaroid sought to market off of the allusion,
hiring Ryan Berger of the Euro RSCG advertising agency.
Polaroid sponsored parties for OutKast, where Euro RSCG
distributed Polaroid cameras. OutKast made a deal to hold
Polaroid cameras during some of its performances. Polaroid does
not release sales figures, but its public image, previously in
decline with the growing popularity of digital cameras, was
bolstered by the song.
The song's music video, directed by Bryan Barber, is based
on The Beatles' landmark appearance on
The Ed Sullivan Showon February 9, 1964, but sets the
action in London. The beginning and end of the video blend with
those of "The Way You Move" so that the two can be watched in
either order, and a "The Way You Move/Hey Ya!" video combining
both clips with a bridging sequence was released on the
OutKast: The VideosDVD. In the video, André 3000 plays
eight members of The Love Below: keyboardist Benjamin Andre,
bassist Possum Jenkins, vocalist Ice Cold 3000, drummer Dookie
Blasingame, three backing vocalists The Love Haters, and
guitarist Johnny Vulture. The video opens with the band's
manager Antwan talking to Ice Cold 3000 and Dookie Blasingame
backstage. Meanwhile, the television presenter, portrayed by
Ryan Phillippe, tries to calm a crowd of screaming girls on a
show being broadcast live in black-and-white. The band performs
while the girls in the audience scream loudly; one girl is
carried off by security after rushing the stage, and another
faints. A family is shown dancing to the broadcast at home.
When André 3000 instructs to "shake it like a Polaroid
picture", some of the girls begin taking pictures and shaking
them. Ice Cold 3000 dances with one of the girls on stage, and
the video closes with several friends of the band watching and
discussing the performance.
The music video was filmed in two days in August 2003 on a
sound stage at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, California.
The cast consisted of over one hundred girls. Each of André
3000's parts was shot several times from different angles, and
he performed the song 23 times during the course of filming.
Because releasing "Hey Ya!" as a single was a last minute
decision, André did not have time to choreograph the parts, and
all of the dancing was improvised. Ice Cold 3000's sequences
were the first filmed, resulting in the character's energetic
performance, and Johnny Vulture's were the last, so André,
exhausted from the previous takes, sat on a stool for those
sequences.
The music video proved to be a success. The video debuted on
MTV's
Total Request Liveon September 5, 2003 at number ten. It
topped the countdown for nineteen days and retired at number
eight on November 24, having spent fifty days on the program.
At the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards, the video won four awards
for Video of the Year, Best Hip-Hop Video, Best Special
Effects, and Best Art Direction. It was also nominated for Best
Direction but lost to Jay-Z's "99 Problems". "Hey Ya!" was
nominated for Best Short Form Music Video at the 46th Grammy
Awards, but it lost to Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails'
"Hurt". In Canada, the video topped MuchMusic's
Countdownfor four weeks, and it won the award for Best
International Group at the 2004 MuchMusic Video Awards. In
2006,
Stylus Magazinelisted it at number seventy-two on its
"Top 100 Music Videos of All Time", comparing André 3000's
dancing to James Brown's performances in the early 1970s.
The rock influences of "Hey Ya!" have allowed many other
artists to release cover versions of the song. One of the first
covers of the song was by indie rock band Razorlight, who
performed the song with the London Community Gospel Choir for a
BBC Radio 1 session, later releasing their version as a B-side
for their single "Vice". In a similar vein, Will Young, also on
the station, recorded a slower piano version of the song, which
became the B-side for his single "Friday's Child". Young's
version also appears on the compilation album
Radio 1's Live Lounge. Richard Cheese and Lounge Against
the Machine recorded a lounge version of the song for their
2004 album
I'd Like a Virgin. Country band The BossHoss, Latin pop
singer JD Natasha, punk rock band Pennywise, Indie pop band
Tilly and the Wall, and rock and roll band The Supersuckers
have also recorded cover versions.
In 2006, Mat Weddle, frontman of the unsigned folk band
Obadiah Parker, performed an acoustic cover of the song at a
local open mike night, and a friend of his posted a video of
the performance on YouTube. The video gained popularity on the
Internet, soon becoming a viral video, and was viewed by over
one million people. Inspired by slowcore band Red House
Painters, Weddle's version moves at a much slower tempo backed
by a rhythmic guitar strum and converts the breakdown into a
"staccato chime". The cover received international airplay and
spawned many other copycat acoustic versions.