The Encroaching Ubiquity of I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baeFAxk6N8I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9apWz-E3bDE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Blurcz474w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUeXnJhcCl4

NICE horns in this one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txghM2Bs2qo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pBt-ImGn3w

Man I love school choirs/orchestras!

Was rocking this on the minibus at work today. I support the encroaching ubiquity of "I Got a Feeling"

I feel like nobody thinks wayne's any good now but "I don't drink beer, I like champagne/so, 'cheers' to Lil Wayne" made me smile so big

When I was a student in a crappy area of southampton, england, there was a 60 year oldish woman, possibly slightly confused somewhere upstairs, who worked in the local supermarket who used to sing non stop at all the students in a very happy way and became something of a legend to anyone who lived around there when they were at university. She would usually do cliff richard with maybe a dash of take that or whatever else was big popwise at the time. I hear that for the last six months she's expanded to do a confusing medley of I Gotta Feeling and I Kissed A Girl.

Oh how I long for the days when "Time of Your Life" was the ubiquitous one.

love this song so much, top 5 songs in rotation on the radio station at my work

i love it too.

And I like the Wayne version too JD. You are not alone.

WOOOOOO HOOOOOOO

L'Chaim!

i love it too.

― o sh!t a ˁ˚ᴥ˚ˀ (ENBB), Thursday, July 29, 2010 1:41 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I like dumb pop songs as much as the next guy, hell I repped for "Girlfriend" in that Dr. Luke thread, but this is one of the single most awful pop songs in the last decade and I die a little each time I'm forced to hear it. Given its approaching ubiquity, I should have no soul left at all by about 2014.

sweet, have fun being a Twilight character

i teared up when the kids orchestra started playing it
for some reason i can't watch kid musical events without crying
it's kind of a problem

sweet, have fun being a Twilight character

Now that was uncalled for, couldn't you have just called me an "asshole" or something a little friendlier?

I seriously don't understand why, but the Black Eyed Peas in general and this song in particular bring out the Alex in NYC in me.

hate this song so much. and "encroaching" is the wrong word. its popularity has peaked already imo, we're on the way down the mountain of ubiquity onto the foothills of annoyingly overexposed.

I hope Kool & The Gang have invested their money well, because ASCAP payments on "Celebration" are probably taking a big dip.

It isn't going anywhere. There was just a story on the radio the other day that for many wedding DJs, this has surpassed "Celebration" as the most requested song.

oh god i hope nothing similar is happening in britain.

I gotta feeling
That this song's gonna be ubiquitous

Unlike "Celebration," "I Gotta Feeling" affords a wedding-reception crowd:

-Vocal parts of men and women
-Vocal parts for those who can sing and those who cannot
-Vocal parts for groomsmen and bridesmaids
-The high "woooo-hooo" part for those who want to sing a little but not a lot
-A 2-for-1 deal. The song could be 2.5 minutes, but then (after they sing "do it again"), it repeats itself

er, vocal parts for men and women

I believe this song may be the eternal flipside to Carmina Burana.

i feel like a fun-ruiner for h8ing this song. shit sounds like a slice of wonder bread and a glass of water 2 me.

last night i was driving home at the end of a really good night, flipped over to the pop station, and this song was playing, and for real, it was AWESOME.

i thought about c&p'ing relevant stats from the song's wikipedia entry about how it's the highest selling digital single ever and the 5th biggest billboard hit of the last decade and went to #1 in 20 countries but really it was hard to sift through it all and isolate just the facts that best convey its utter hugeness.

btw i don't like to do the predict that other people will change their minds in the future thing with music, i think it's obnoxious, but for real, "I Gotta Feeling" didn't place in ILM Top 100 2005-2009: TRACKS but i strongly suspect in 5 or 10 years if you did that poll over it would do pretty well.

The first time I ever heard the song was following some link to this video, so right off the bat it seemed like a classic freshman-orientation anthem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zcOFN_VBVo

Unlike "Celebration," "I Gotta Feeling" affords a wedding-reception crowd:

-Vocal parts of men and women
-Vocal parts for those who can sing and those who cannot
-Vocal parts for groomsmen and bridesmaids
-The high "woooo-hooo" part for those who want to sing a little but not a lot
-A 2-for-1 deal. The song could be 2.5 minutes, but then (after they sing "do it again"), it repeats itself

Totally! Also, the whole "tonight's gonna be a good night" theme affords winking reference to wedding-night hanky-panky.

also: go out and smash it
like omg

i wd like this song more with a female vocal. funny it has so many supporters around here! also funny that this thread is being started now. i didn't realize it was still going strong, but i guess it is!

also funny that this thread is being started now. i didn't realize it was still going strong, but i guess it is!

yeah, love the song to death, but wasn't it "on the way down the mountain of ubiquity onto the foothills of annoyingly overexposed" like, nine months ago?

I was just saying if I ever have kids there will be like a 100% chance that I will hear this song at their wedding in 25 or 30 years

i think a year out is when you really get to be able to tell whether a song is ever going away or if it's kind of going to be perennially ubiquitous. but yeah, this thread could've started anytime.

strengths of "I Gotta Feeling" imo:

-hooks
-catchy, danceable
-fun for the whole family

weaknesses of "I Gotta Feeling" imo:

-hooks are unengaging and derivative
-maximal pop form for its minimal content
-fun for the whole family
-every single member of the black eyed peas annoys the shit out of me regardless of whether I like the song they are performing on are not

*or not

More like it's going from overexposed in a number-one-hit way to permeating itself into the very fiber of our society.

Official video is surprisingly racy (Fergie in thong, girl/girl makeout, etc.).

I mean, there are things I think that could be improved - - for example, the whole "monday, tuesday, wednesday" section is kind of a waste of space, and arguably works against the idea that tonight is the special, magic night that one has a feeling about. I kinda wish he just made a strong case for Thursday and Thursday alone. But these are quibbles, the thing was massive for a reason and I'll save my hate for "Boom Boom Pow," which was just moronic.

yeah running down the days of the week in a pop song is usually serious filler.

4 me, it just feels rly fucking tepid 4 a dance song. i dunno, i'm having trouble coming up with criticisms that don't rely on tired standard issue pop song h8rade. im not rly engaged by the song at any point, and i dont feel like it ever goes anywhere. like wheres the dynamism? if it werent for its creeping ubiquity i feel like i would have 4gotten about this song a while ago.

i like that it's not very dynamic -- you just have this nice pretty melody with a kinda cool unique texture looping over and over with a bunch of different vocal hooks alternating over it and the drums never hit that hard or feel like an important piece of the whole. makes it feel kind of singular and unusual as a dance party staple.

this song was made so little kids and old people can dance together
it's gonna be kind of stupid and bouncy

this song is awesome hatersto the left

i hate when white people do fake "rap" dances. makes me want to punch them.

off the top of my head, another example would be "who let the dogs out". no one bought the baha men album, no one listens to that on their ipod. it's meant for ubiquity. it's made so that people who don't pay attention to music can still feel like they're in the know when they hear it at a ball game, or on tv.

― 'ello govna, Friday, July 30, 2010 11:52 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

No one bought the Baja Men album, but Black Eyed Peas went double platinum with this album, which would have been like 8 times platinum in the Baja Men's day

I bought that baha men album lol

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v622/thingummy99/Picture3-1.png

I like this bit.

you can't dance stupid to "billie jean"

my best friend texted me from the wedding she was at last night, saying she participated in a dance off to Billie Jean. she won.

Report for the ground, July 2010. I went to my boss's boss's boss's 68th birthday last night. In addition to "September" and "Play That Funky Music" and "I've Had The Time of My Life" and "Oh What A Night," the top-shelf wedding-type band only played one song newer than "Like A Prayer": "Party in the U.S.A."

baha men didn't have a dozen or so previous hits

Haha, I was having dinner the other night with my mom and her boyfriend -- both in their sixties -- and he was giving her shit for not having heard of "Who Let the Dogs Out." He was like, "It was everywhere!"

yeah, him otm

i hate when white people do fake "rap" dances. makes me want to punch them.

what's the difference between a 'fake rap dance' and a 'real rap dance'? can white people do real rap dances? what kind of dances are white people allowed to do to rap music?

i don't know if this is what Whiney meant by "fake rap dancing", but i'm not a fan of joke dancing. back in school, most of the guys i knew were too self-conscious to just dance, so they had to make it into a big joke. i'd rather see really bad dancing then a bunch of guys acting like clowns and taking up space.

what's the difference between a 'fake rap dance' and a 'real rap dance'? can white people do real rap dances? what kind of dances are white people allowed to do to rap music?

― iatee, Sunday, August 1, 2010 1:14 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

uh yeah he means jokey ironic "lol ... dancing" dancing

BTW the mention of "Oh What A Night" and the recollection of how I felt about this when it was huge helps me understand how the BEP-haters here feel about "I Gotta Feeling." I cannot deny the former is extremely catchy but I HATE it -- and I think my reasons for hating it parallel in some sense people's reasons for hating "I Gotta Feeling" -- I see the reference to 1963 as a cynical grasp at the sympathy of old people (see also: "Old Time Rock and Roll," "Summer of '69") in the same way you guys see "Mazel Tov" as a cynical grasp at the sympathy of bar mitzvah MCs.

I have no good theory to explain why I reject "Oh What a Night" and accept "I Gotta Feeling." Will think about it and tell you guys if I come up with anything.

uh yeah he means jokey ironic "lol ... dancing" dancing

like how long does this sort of dancing go on? do people carry on their ironic dancing three, four, five songs in a row? actual question, it's hard for me to imagine an "ironic" dance lasting longer than a minute or two unless it was like a genuinely ironic piece by Alvin Ailey or something

like if you are at places where people are just "ironic" dancing all night long are you maybe dancing @ Actors Theatre or something?

I better be careful not to smile or laugh or somewhat jokingly attempt a move I can't quite pull off next I'm dancing, someone from this thread might be there and murder me or something

a3rosmith otm

in my life I honestly don't think I've seen anyone 'ironically dance' for more than 20 seconds and never on a dance floor. if there's a 40 yo white dude on a dancefloor and a rap song comes on, I don't think it's 'ironic' if he does something sorta goofy. I mean, is this person supposed to turn into an authentic hip hop dancer? are they supposed to resort to their white person traditions and just square dance or something? it's hard to imagine a way that they'd be able to be racially insensitive using dance moves.

I should say that I'm sensitive about this because more than once after being seen dancing a little I'll hear "underrated aerosmith seemed to be making fun of the entrance music by dancing funny to it" and I'll be like "hey fuck you that is how I dance you fuckin assholes"

i'm with some dude. jokey/ironic dancing is a lot of fun. anybody who's ever attempted to dance like bryan ferry in the "same old scene" video, or like a dude from the detroit new dance show, or like a dude in a jam and lewis video, knows what i mean

I better be careful not to smile or laugh or somewhat jokingly attempt a move I can't quite pull off next I'm dancing, someone from this thread might be there and murder me or something

― The chickbad from the ludicrous 'ludacris' song (some dude), Sunday, August 1, 2010 6:47 PM (9 minutes ago)

There's a difference between trying something and laughing because you feel goofy, and being an ironic ass just to get attention. Like I said this was mostly in college, I don't notice it much anymore when I go out. Mostly because I avoid frat boy hangouts.

This song is so nothing...

Oh how I long for the days when "Time of Your Life" was the ubiquitous one.

― he's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, 29 July 2010 18:37 (4 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

prescient

heh

"i gotta feeling" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "the time" and i hate "i gotta feeling"

"Time of Your Life" is a disaster

ditto "Here's to the Night"

the word "encroaching" being in this thread title still cracks me up

"boom boom pow" is also still a hundred times better than this song

duh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3PRmu0tr6k&feature=youtu.be

My pet peeve is indie-ish songwriters messing up a cover by making fun of it, coming from the angle that what they're covering is a shitty piece of craftsmanship when it's actually as carefully put together as anything in their own catalog.

actually I think that's great because it usually exposes the indie-ish songwriters for the talent-lite hacks most of them are

Like they need any help with that.

ha fair point

Never having had any desire to check out Jeff Tweedy, this will ensure that turns into a lifelong trend.

so this didn't end up becoming that ubiquitous, did it? haven't heard it on the radio in ages, and i listen a lot.

it felt p ubiquitous to me the year it came out, but that was largely because at the time i had cokehead downstairs neighbors who would come home at 3 in the morning and blast it; their stereo was apparently set up against a wall directly under my bedroom, and the sound would travel up through the floor, through my mattress, and into my pillow. it was actually louder if i was lying down.

I don't think I've heard this song in a couple years.

Maybe like once since the super bowl disaster

ubiquitous pop songs always drop off the radar in the subsequent year or two. in this case i'm very glad of that. doubtless it'll eventually return as a staple though, sigh

yeah this turned out not to really have staying power. especially compared to, like, "Single Ladies," which came out about 6 months earlier.

i feel like it's remained really influential on pop music, though. there's still at least a few "I Gotta Feeling" soundalike major label singles every year, and I feel like it kicked off the whole wave of 'wistful party song' type hits like "We Can't Stop."

Sorry, what's wistful about I Gotta Feeling?

Autotuning on ''..and then we'll do it agaiaaian,'' and the little doodle-WOOdle-oodle-oo sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0S2PtFP2Jo

The comparison with "Celebration" is apt. And I love both songs, and hope and plan to hear both at my son's bar mitzvah someday!

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, July 29, 2010 7:53 PM (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Update: did in fact play this at my son's bar mitzvah

Lol, what a lovely thread revive

Congratulations!

I genuinely miss the days of ubiquitous Black Eyed Peas. Just learned that they went back to their roots two years ago and made a political rap album, accompanied by a sci-fi Marvel comic about the crack epidemic?

Ritmo (Bad Boys for life)" by The Black Eyed Peas with J Balvin is #1 on Billboard's Hot Latin chart. Eh, not that impressive. Not good.

Holy crap, my kids and I were cracking up playing this in the car just last week. One didn't believe me that a singer actually says "l'chaim!" My theory is they wrote this *specifically* for bar and bat mitzvahs, after spending time in Hollywood and hearing about all the big paychecks peers had been getting for private performances.