2011 single by Fun
"We Are Young" is a song recorded by American pop rock band Fun, featuring American singer Janelle Monáe. It is the third track on the group's second studio album, "Some Nights" (2012). The song was released on September 20, 2011, as the lead single from the album. The song quickly received widespread acclaim from music critics, with many noting the song as a breakthrough for the indie genre and praising the song's catchiness. "We Are Young" attained commercial success worldwide, reaching number one in several countries.
Initially, the track only gained online media attention, in addition to its first commercial radio airplay on Tampa Bay alt radio station 97X, debuting on September 19, 2011. After this, it was soon covered by the television show "Glee". With the "Glee" version having success on the charts, the song was licensed for use in a Chevrolet Sonic commercial that aired during Super Bowl XLVI. This song alone propelled the band into mainstream success, topping the digital charts in February 2012 and becoming a crossover hit. Peaking at number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 through airplay on contemporary hit radio stations, the song topped the charts for six weeks straight. It is also the first song to log seven weeks of 300,000 or more in digital sales, surpassing a record previously held by Eminem and Rihanna's "Love the Way You Lie" (2010).
"We Are Young" has been certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America and is both Fun and Monáe's first charting single on the Hot 100, as well as their first number-one single. The song has also been used in the "American Dad!" episode "Faking Bad". The song also topped the Hot 100 Airplay chart with 120 million impressions in seven weeks, becoming the first group since Destiny's Child's "Survivor" (2001) to do so. The song was named 99th on the "Billboard" Hot 100 Songs of All-time.
An accompanying music video was directed by Marc Klasfeld at David Sukonick Concert Hall in Los Angeles. It features the group performing on a stage at a bar where a riot breaks out. As part of the promotion for the song, it was performed at the 2011 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the American late night television show "Conan", and was used as the opening song at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards. The song is featured in the music video game "Rock Band Blitz". The song won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year at the 55th Grammy Awards, where it was also nominated for Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.
Production.
After the poor commercial performance of their debut album, "Aim and Ignite", Fun decided to put Jeff Bhasker as producer for their second studio effort. The band's frontman, Nate Ruess, met with Bhasker at his hotel in New York City in February 2011. Ruess was anxious about meeting Bhasker, so he arrived early at the bar in the Bowery Hotel on the Lower East Side "and had a little to drink just to make sure [he] was loosened up." According to Bhasker, he did not want to meet the band, as he "was working with Beyoncé, and also with Alicia, Kanye [West] and Jay-Z, and doing this had been a big goal in my life. I had no intention of being distracted." Bhasker has stated that the instrumental for the song was "an inch" away from being included on West and Jay-Z's collaborative album "Watch the Throne" (2011).
Bhasker had just finished a long day in the studio with Beyoncé and had decided to give Ruess 10 minutes. He had previously already canceled two meetings with him. The two began talking about music, and Ruess' desire to merge hip-hop beats and electronic effects with pop rock intrigued Bhasker, who invited Ruess up to his hotel room to show him some Beyoncé tracks he had been working on. "Slightly tipsy and feeling inspired", Ruess belted out the chorus for "We Are Young", which at that time was an unfinished composition. Bhasker was taken aback and automatically "freaked out", demanding he sees the band for studio time "in the next few days." The next day, Bhasker and Ruess booked a New York studio and cut a version of "We Are Young" not far from the final version of the track.
On the first day of recording at Jungle City, Bhasker programmed the drums on his Akai MPC3000 machine, a Moog bass, and "maybe using my little [Roland] Juno 106, and we added vocals and piano. We worked for many more days on it afterwards, but the core of the final version of the song was recorded on that first day." After the Jungle City sessions, more vocal, guitar and piano tracks were recorded at Electric Ladyland Studios. From there, sessions continued at Enormous Studios in Los Angeles, The Village Recorder to track the children's choir, and Abbey Road Studios to record the orchestral arrangements. The band invited Janelle Monáe to provide guest vocals on "We Are Young" through her friendship with Bhasker. After being played the song, Monáe was enthused and recorded her vocals in Bristol, England. Bhasker further mixed the song in a 44.1 kHz/24-bit Pro Tools HD session over almost two weeks, and the stereo mix was mastered using an L2 limiter and an API 550 EQ.
When Bhasker multi-tracked Ruess' vocals for the chorus, he noticed that it "had a Queen/Freddie Mercury vibe to it." Guitarist Jack Antonoff called "We Are Young" the "bull's-eye center" of the sound the band was striving for while producing "Some Nights." The song displays the influences brought by Jeff Bhasker and hip-hop music. Antonoff agreed with the notion that the song was their de facto anthem: "It's pretty rare, because any other projects that we've done, I don't think any of us have ever had that song that was like, 'This is our band,'" Antonoff said. "We're proud to say, 'Listen to this one song, and then come listen to the rest. Here it is.'"
Composition and lyrical interpretation.
"We Are Young" is a stadium rock, indie rock, and indie pop song. It is written in the key of F major, based almost entirely on the 50s progression (I vi IV V) except for its bridge. It follows a tempo of 116 beats per minute, changing to 92 bpm from the pre-chorus to the end (some bars in the middle changing to 94 bpm). The song has a slow hip hop groove from the first chorus onward. The song is entirely in common time. The instrumentation of the original mix session consists of drums, bass guitar, synth bass, electric guitars, synths, piano, horns and other brass, and a huge number of vocal tracks. As well as the rough mix and two reference tracks by Queen and Kanye West that are muted in the final master.
According to "Spin", the song incorporates a "marrying fist-pump stadium rock to the prim indie-pop of Grizzly Bear's 'Two Weeks,' keeping the deliberate beats and soaring melodies but replacing choirboy primness with a percussive whomp." Andrew Unterberger of "Popdust" compared the song's chorus to Pat Benatar's "Love Is a Battlefield" and Supergrass's "Alright". Tim Jonze of "The Guardian" described the chorus as anthemic and compared it to work done by Arcade Fire and stated that the lyrics were "life-affirming and fit for a teen movie soundtrack."
Lead singer Nate Ruess says the lyrics were inspired by one specific night, after "my worst drinking night of all time." Ruess told "Rolling Stone" that he was kicked out of a taxi cab for vomiting all over it, saying "the cabbie was demanding all this money, and all I could do was stand on the corner with my head against the wall. It took me another day before I was a functioning adult and could actually write down the verses."
Critical reception.
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"Obviously the harmonies bring to mind a band like Queen, so there's a touch point for older listeners."
—Bruce Warren, assistant station manager for WXPN (88.5 FM) comparing the song to the work of rock band Queen in an interview with "The New York Times".
"We Are Young" received critical acclaim. Jody Rosen of "Rolling Stone" called the song "rollickingly catchy", writing that "Ruess' knack for the anthemic is matched by Gen-Y humor – emo self-deprecation that leavens the bombast." In addition, fellow "Rolling Stone" columnist Steve Knopper compared the song's crossover success to that of Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks" (2011), writing that the song displays a "sprightly pop-novelty feel" that is the best track on the album. Al Shipley of "The Village Voice" agreed with this comparison, attributing the song's success to the changing music industry as a result of advertising and iTunes. MTV News called "We Are Young" the band's "breakout anthem" and one of the year's most unlikely sensations.
RJ Cubarrubia of "Billboard" commended the band for taking their "warm retro sound into soaring ballad territory," calling the track a "bold statement." He did, however, criticize the small inclusion of Janelle Monáe in the track: "Monáe's guest spot is a missed opportunity, as the budding R&amp;B star is relegated to background harmonies instead of adding something soulful and special to an already powerful hook." Bill Lamb of About.com praised the chorus stating: "'We Are Young' carries a hook in the chorus that is likely to stop many listeners dead in their tracks the first time they hear it. The second time around this just might have become your new favorite song." However, Luke Lewis of "NME" gave a highly negative review of the song, giving a 5 out of 10, stating: "It's not clear what compelled Janelle Monáe to work with these New York-based Panic! at the Disco soundalikes. They're hardly natural bedfellows, and her input is limited to a brief vocal. It's a winning formula though – this stirring emo ballad went to Number One in the US. This year's Owl City then, if that concept doesn't chill your blood."
The song won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year at the 2013 Grammy Awards, where it was also a nominee for Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.
Chart performance.
"We Are Young" hit US radio on December 6, 2011, and entered the "Billboard" Hot 100 at number 53 on December 24, 2011. The song's debut coincided with the airing of the episode of "Glee" it was featured in, "Hold On to Sixteen". As such, the Glee version of the song debuted on the same day, and debuted at the number 12 spot on the "Billboard" Hot 100, meaning the song was technically a Top 40 hit for the "Glee" cast before the original version. Following the popularity of the "Glee" version, there was a 1,650% jump in sales of "We Are Young" (from 3,000 to 49,000 during the week of December 11, 2011).
The song had another surge in popularity in February of 2012 due to its appearance in a Super Bowl commercial spot, which helped it explode at radio and at retail. In the week following the Super Bowl, it rose 26 spots to number 63 on the Hot 100, and jumped from number 72 to 41 on the Hot Digital Songs chart. It rocketed up the charts, until, on March 7, 2012, "We Are Young" ascended to the top position on the "Billboard" Hot 100. It remained number one for six consecutive weeks, and was also the first song to log seven weeks of 300,000 or more in digital sales, beating a record that was previously held by Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie" (2010). "We Are Young" topped the Hot 100 Airplay chart with 120 million impressions in seven weeks, becoming the first group since Destiny's Child's Survivor (2001). The song was the first song in 2012 to be certified by the RIAA 3 times platinum with sales of 3 million, and was later certified 5 times platinum on June 21, 2012. As of early January 2014, the song had sold 6,830,000 copies in the United States. In 2023, "We Are Young" hit 1 billion Spotify streams.
In the United Kingdom, the song climbed to number one on the UK Singles Chart on May 27, 2012 ― for the week ending date June 2, 2012 ― after floating around the top ten of the chart