Bang Bang

Story of Song

“A moment of empowering women and a song that gets you on your feet.” Jessie J told the story of the song to Spin Magazine, saying: “‘Bang Bang’ basically represents what it did back in the day when you were little. It was just a word that kind of is explosive. Like, ‘BANG BANG! Pour me a beer!’ It’s like a Do It Like A Dude mentality. It doesn’t really mean anything in particular. It’s not violent. It’s just a very in-your-face, catchy phrase. It’s like ‘Stomp stomp!’ or ‘Pow pow!’ It’s edgy and you can kinda take what you want from it.” The trio didn’t record the song at the same time. They hardly ever met since the three of them are very successful. Jessie said: “Sadly, it’s very rare to actually ever meet someone that’s successful and great, they’re very rarely available, so we actually meet for the first time in the morning. I fly to LA in about two hours to shoot the video tomorrow so, we have yet to meet. So what a great way to meet and be like ‘Yo, wassup’ yeah we got a number 1 song on iTunes.”

Release date

Released on July 29, 2014.

Songwriter/s

Max Martin – Savan Kotecha – Rickard Goransson – Nicki Minaj

Label

Lava – Republic

Chart Rankings

US – 3

UK – 1

GERMANY  – 13

‘Bang Bang’ debuted at number one in the UK Singles Charts, becoming Jessie J’s third, Ariana Grande’s second, and Nicki Minaj’s first number one single in the UK. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) certified it platinum for sales over 600.000 copies. In the US, the single was certified five times platinum by the (RIAA) for sales over 2.3 million copies and peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100. It topped the charts in Australia, Croatia, and Scotland. The single reached the top 10 charts in several countries including Belgium, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Slovakia, and South Korea. It was certified double platinum in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden, and platinum in Italy. ‘Bang Bang’ was certified platinum in Denmark, where it was streamed 2.6 million times. In Spain, it reached four million streams and was certified gold. The song went to number one on iTunes in less than 40 minutes from its debut release in the UK.

Artist’s age on release date

26 (Jessie J), 21 (Grande), and 31 (Minaj)

Cover Versions

Andie Case – Mackenzie Johnson – Lindee Link, Chanel Loran & Everyll – other amateur artists covered this song on YouTube