Hey Ya!
"Hey Ya!" is a
2003 number-one single recorded by
André 3000 of the
hip-hop duo
OutKast, released on
LaFace Records. It and "
The Way You Move", recorded by
Big Boi, the other member of the duo, were released as the first singles from OutKast's
double album project
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, which includes a solo album from each member. Released from André's
The Love Below half of the album,"Hey Ya!" peaked at number-one on the
Billboard Hot 100, becoming OutKast's second number-one single. Like the rest of
The Love Below, "Hey Ya!" features an idiosyncratic,
funk influenced sound, which caused the song to chart on the
Modern Rock charts. The song is remembered for introducing the phrase "shake it like a
Polaroid picture" into modern pop culture.
Song information
"Hey Ya!" was written and produced by André 3000, who also performed all instruments except keyboards, on which he collaborated with Kevin Kendricks, one of
The Love Below's several keyboardists, and he also sung all vocals. As he did for the rest of the album, André did a significant amount of the programming for the song using the
Reason software program. Lyrically, "Hey Ya!" is an abstract exploration of the various aspects of love, the central theme to André's side of the album. The narrator in the song is unsure of both how his girl feels for him, and how he feels for her, and decides to adopt an "ice cold" stand-off approach to relationships. The song has an unusual 22-note
phrasing: instead of the usual 8 measures of 4/4, it has three measures of 4/4, one of 2/4, and two more of 4/4.
Music video
The song's
music video, directed by
Bryan Barber, features a performance, styled as one from the
black and white era of
television (although the video itself is in color), in which André 3000 plays several different versions of himself as the different members of a band, "The Love Below", all wearing green and white outfits, but all with different names and personalities. The video is based on
the Beatles' landmark appearance on the
Ed Sullivan Show on
February 9 1964, but sets the action in
London. An enthusiastic crowd of girls can hardly be restrained as he sings. Most live performances of the song featured similar antics, parodying the
British Invasion with the dance movements and costuming. The video also features a special appearance by
Ryan Phillipe as the host, but in the DVD version of OutKast music videos, it was played by a different British actor who looks somewhat like a young Ed Sullivan.
The "Hey Ya!" music video was designed to be shown in tandem with the video for Big Boi's "
The Way You Move". A long-form "The Way You Move/Hey Ya!" video combines both clips with a bridging sequence. The combination is included in the OutKast: The Videos DVD. The profanity was censored on the DVD.
Critical response, chart performance, and covers
"Hey Ya!" was the number-one song on the
Billboard Hot 100 for nine weeks, from
December 6,
2003 to
January 31,
2004. It was replaced at number-one by Big Boi's "The Way You Move", the sixth time a recording act has replaced itself at number one since
Elvis Presley first did so in
1956.
"Hey Ya!" was voted as the best single of the year in
The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll, and was the most recent song to be included in the 2004
List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, ranked at number 180. "
Lose Yourself" and "
Stan" are the only other songs from the
21st century on Rolling Stone's list, making it the only song on the list from this century not performed by
Eminem.
One of the first covers of the song was by
Razorlight, who performed the song with the
London Community Gospel Choir for a
BBC Radio 1 (the British youth/popular music radio station from the
BBC) 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".
Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine have also
swankified the song in their traditional manner on their
I'd Like a Virgin album.
It was also one of the first songs to become a hit on
Apple's iTunes Music Store, replacing "
Stacy's Mom" by
Fountains of Wayne at No. 1 and staying there for months. The song went to number one on the
Billboard Hot 100 and also in
Canada and
Australia and has charted in twenty-eight countries around the world.
*Its elements were used in two
Jimmy Neutron episodes.
*
Hot 100 No. 1 Hits of 2003 (USA)*
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