Shake It Off
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| “Shake It Off” | |||||
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| Single by Mariah Carey from the album The Emancipation of Mimi |
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| A-side |  "Get Your Number" |
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| B-side | "Secret Love" | ||||
| Released |  July 12, 2005 |
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| Format | Digital download | ||||
| Recorded | New York City, United States and Tokyo, Japan | ||||
| Genre | Pop, R&B | ||||
| Length | 3:52 (Album/Single Version) | ||||
| Label | Island | ||||
| Writer(s) | Mariah Carey, Jermaine Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox, Johnta Austin | ||||
| Producer | Mariah Carey, Jermaine Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox | ||||
| Mariah Carey singles chronology | |||||
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| The Emancipation of Mimi track listing | |||||
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"Shake It Off" is a song co-written by American singer Mariah Carey, Jermaine Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox, Johnta Austin, and recorded for Carey's fourteenth album, The Emancipation of Mimi (2005). It was co-produced by Carey, Dupri and Cox. Its protagonist leaves a message on her boyfriend's answering machine announcing that she is leaving him as she packs her bags. She compares her situation to a Calgon commercial and declares, "I gotta shake it off, cause the loving ain't the same..." It was released as the album's third single in 2005 (see 2005 in music).
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[edit] Release and reception
"Shake It Off" was released in the United States on July 12, 2005. Originally "Say Somethin'" had been set for release by L.A. Reid and Carey's label, Island/Def Jam. However, Carey lobbied for the release of "Shake It Off".[citation needed] "Say Somethin'" was first announced as the next single, Paul Hunter was contacted to direct the music video, and Snoop Dogg had talked about the single and its video on MTV.com. When Carey continued to protest, a compromise was formed to release the songs as a double A-side. The release of "Say Somethin'" was later cancelled and "Shake It Off" was released on its own in the U.S., though "Say Somethin'" eventually became a single in 2006.
Todd Burns of Stylus magazine said that the song was "sultry",[1] while Edwin Soto described it as a "very groovy ballad", and made favourable comparisons with the work of R. Kelly.[2] Other critics, however, were less enthusiastic: Bill Lamb of About.com said it was "little more than a pleasant piece of pop fluff... it is unlikely to be one of Mariah Carey's more memorable hits."[3] LAUNCHcast's Dan Gennoe called the song "Usher-lite",[4] a criticism that was echoed by Sal Cinquemani of Slant magazine: she called "Shake It Off" as "Usher by way of Dupri", and grouped it among "the songs [on the album] that don't work... in which Mariah too heavily bites on the styles of her successors".[5] Blender magazine ranked it thirty-eighth on its 100 Greatest Songs of 2005 list.[6]
[edit] Chart performance
In its first week of U.S. release the single garnered the highest debut on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 (sixty-six), and partly because of strong radio airplay, it had reached number two by its seventh week. The single holding it back from number one was Carey's own "We Belong Together", making it the first a female artist to occupied the top two positions of the Hot 100.[7] "Shake It Off" was expected to reach number one the next week, but Kanye West's "Gold Digger" (featuring Jamie Foxx) was released for digital download that week. The airplay for "Gold Digger" was weaker than the airplay for "Shake It Off", but record-breaking downloads in its first week pushed "Gold Digger" to number one on the Hot 100, keeping "Shake It Off" at number two.
"Gold Digger" spent ten weeks at number one, and "Shake It Off" was at the number two position for six weeks, staying in the top forty for nineteen weeks. It was Carey's sixth number-one single on the Top 40 Mainstream chart (the most for any artist on the chart), and was the last number-one song on the chart. On September 15, 2005, "Shake It Off" passed the 200 million audience impressions mark according to Mediabase. It was the second single to do this, the first being "We Belong Together". On Billboard magazine's 2005 Hot 100 year-end chart, "Shake It Off" placed at number fifteen.
The song was slightly less successful outside the U.S. It reached the top five in New Zealand and the top ten in Australia, and was issued as a double A-side with "Get Your Number" in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where it reached the top ten and top twenty respectively. However, it failed to reach the top forty on the Tokyo Hot 100 airplay chart in Japan.
Music writer Samuel Delliance of The New York Post noted: "Mariah Carey fans seem obsessed with their hero's performance on the charts, when you'd think they'd be better off just listening to music and enjoying it. Shake it off!"
This marked a significant turning point in Carey's career, which had taken a nosedive during the preceding four years. She was able to string consecutive singles that were overwhelmingly successful and regained an image of prestige among the pop/R&B singers.
[edit] Remixes
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Carey commissioned a remix for "Shake It Off", and enlisted DJ Clue, who had produced her last remix for "We Belong Together", to help produce it. Initially, it had been rumored that Bow Wow and/or Da Brat would be the remix's guest rappers, but the participation of Jay-Z and Young Jeezy was later officially announced. On July 9, 2005 the remix leaked onto the internet.
A substantial promotional campaign was soon launched to help publicize the remix. July 20, 2005, the day of the remix's release, was dubbed "D-Day" (download day) by Carey's website (www.mariahcarey.com) as well as several Carey fan sites. In addition, various incentives were offered to help encourage downloading; Carey's official site launched a contest that would offer dinner with Carey to a fan who had downloaded the remix and shown proof of purchase, and a select few who were runners up would receive an autographed promotional photo. Fansites such as Mariah Daily and Mariah Connections offered rare CDs and promotional items. Carey's label purchased a full front-page banner on the iTunes Music Store to help promote the song. Various radio stations advertised the remix during commercial breaks, and Erik Bradley of Chicago station B96 made a public plea for people to download the remix so that it would beat "Gold Digger". The remix failed to enter the top ten on the iTunes chart, and it did not attract as many downloads as "Gold Digger".
[edit] Music video
The single's video was directed by Jake Nava and begins with Carey learning of her boyfriend's infidelity. She informs him on the PDA that she is breaking up with her, picks up her bag and leaves the apartment. Carey stops near a restaurant, and then appears in a bus speaking on her PDA, with Chris Tucker as the man in the passenger's seat. Behind the car, a sign reading "Hollyhood" comes into vision, and the video is intercut with scenes of her boyfriend accompanied by other women. Carey is then shown on bleachers at a high school baseball game. She writes "MIMI" on one of the bleachers and the letters instantly transform into a large shiny "MIMI" sign made of lights, which Carey dances and sings in front of. In the final scene she approaches the ocean on a beach during sunrise, shaking off her dress in the process.
The video features several phrases intended to represent places and official company names, as well as references to people and things associated with Carey. "Jack's Café" refers to her famous Jack Russell Terrier named Jack. "Pink Yet Lavender" is a reference to an interview she did with Lambs Radio in January 2005. "The Rarity" was a name given to her leg muscles in her E! Uncut special. "So So Fetch" refers to Jermaine Dupri's record label, So So Def, and the word "fetch" comes from one of Carey's favorite films, Mean Girls (2004). The chubby girl performing the "shake it off" dance by the payphones is similar to the girl who dances in the video for Carey's "Fantasy" (1995). When Carey is on the bleachers, a member of Carey's management team, and current boyfriend Mark Sudack appears in the background as a man being yelled at by Da Brat, whom Carey has worked with many times. The scene involving Carey dancing in front of the "MIMI" sign parallels Carey's 2003 Blender magazine photo shoot (in which she is seen in a similar pose, except with a "MARIAH" sign) and Elvis Presley's 1968 Comeback Special (in which he does the same thing, but with an "ELVIS" sign). Elements of the video were incorporated into Carey's performance of the song at the World Music Awards in August 2005.
The video was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award in 2006, in the category of "Best R&B Video", which it lost to Beyoncé Knowles's "Check on It".
[edit] Charts
| Chart (2005)[8] | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian ARIA Singles Chart | 6 |
| Brazilian Singles Chart | 14 |
| Canadian BDS Airplay Chart | 14 |
| Cyprus Singles Chart | 1 |
| Irish Singles Chart 1 | 15 |
| New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart | 5 |
| Tokyo Hot 100 | 51 |
| UK Singles Chart 1 | 9 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 2 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Airplay | 1 (3 weeks) |
| U.S. Billboard Pop 100 | 2 |
| U.S. Billboard Pop 100 Airplay | 1 (5 weeks) |
| U.S. Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks | 2 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay | 2 |
| U.S. Billboard Mainstream Top 40 | 1 (5 weeks) |
| U.S. Billboard Rhythmic Top 40 | 1 (2 weeks) |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Play | 23 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Airplay | 14 |
| United World Chart | 14 |
- 1 "Shake It Off"/"Get Your Number".
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://www.stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=2923 Stylusmagazine.com
- ^ http://www.gearlive.com/index.php/news/article/mariah_carey_emancipation_mimi_album_review_04130729/Gearlive.com
- ^ http://top40.about.com/od/singles/gr/shakeitoff.htm Top40.about.com
- ^ http://uk.launch.yahoo.com/050420/33/1xkmj.html Uk.launch.yahoo.com
- ^ http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/music_review.asp?ID=571 Slantmagazine.com
- ^ The 100 Greatest Songs of 2005 Article on Blender :: The Ultimate Guide to Music and More
- ^ Universal Music Group. Retrieved on February 14, 2006.
- ^ http://www.mariah-charts.com/chartdata/PSIO.htm
[edit] External links
- Mariah Carey - Shake It Off music video on YouTube.
