Peak
1
Weeks
32
Score
7,841
Chart Year
2003
In the video, André 3000 plays all eight members of the fictional band The Love Below: keyboardist Benjamin André, bassist Possum Aloysius Jenkins, vocalist André "Ice Cold" 3000, drummer Dookie Blossom Gain III, three backing vocalists the Love Haters, and guitarist Johnny Vulture.[57] The video opens with the band's manager Antwan (Big Boi) talking to Ice Cold and Dookie backstage. Meanwhile, the television presenter, portrayed by Ryan Phillippe (another version featured an energetic Phillippe), tries to calm a crowd of screaming girls on a show being broadcast live in black-and-white. Afterwards, he introduces the band and they start performing. While the girls in the audience scream loudly, one girl is carried off by security after rushing the stage, and another faints. A family is shown dancing to the broadcast at home. When Ice Cold instructs listeners to "shake it like a Polaroid picture", some of the girls begin taking pictures and shaking them. Ice Cold dances with one of the girls on stage, and the video closes with several friends of the band watching and discussing the performance.
Outkast is a rap duo who go by the names Big Boi and Andre 3000. In 2003, they made a double album, with each member contributing half. Big Boi's album was called Speakerboxxx while Andre's was The Love Below. "Hey Ya!" was Andre's song, and the first single from the album. This was a huge crossover hit, getting lots of play on hip-hop, Top 40 and R&B radio stations. It went to #1 on the Hot 100 December 13, 2003, and stayed for nine weeks. For the last eight weeks, an Outkast song from Big Boi's album Speakerboxxx called "The Way You Move" was #2. When "Hey Ya" finally fell out of the #1 spot on February 14, 2004, it was bumped by "The Way You Move." "Hey Ya!" is a very upbeat and energetic song (warranting an exclamation point in the title!), but according to Andre 3000, it is about the difficulty in keeping a relationship together. The album is mostly about the quest for love. Andre wrote the first version of the song around 1999, and it almost made it onto their 2000 album Stankonia. At the time the song was called "Thank God For Mom And Dad." He started working on it again in 2002, doing lots of experimentation along the way. A lot of lyrics he wrote for the song didn't make the cut. Aaron Mills from the funk band Cameo was brought in to play bass, but Andre played all the other instruments. The guitar chords were the first ones he learned. Report this ad Andre is the only male voice on the song. He did each line over and over, and by the time it was edited together, it sounded like other people were singing with him. The girls who respond to Andre when he says, "Hey Ladies..." are actually just one person. A woman working in the studio was recorded saying "Yeah," and her voice was layered to sound like many. This was finished just in time to be released as the first single from the album. They were going to put out "She Lives In My Lap" when Andre called the record company to tell them "Hey Ya!" was finished and should be released first. The video was inspired by The Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, when the group came to America and created a frenzy. During that show, the audience was filled with screaming girls who went crazy for the group. For the Outkast video, they made it as if an American band invaded England, played a TV show there, and created the same type of frenzy. In the video, Andre 3000 plays eight different band members (including the backup singers), known as The Love Haters. He had to play the song through as each character three times so they could shoot it from different angles - he was exhausted by the end. About 100 girls were brought in as extras to play the screaming fans. The announcer at the beginning of the video is Ryan Phillippe, who has appeared in the movies Cruel Intentions and White Squall. At the time, he was married to the actress Reese Witherspoon. Polaroid pictures are instant photos taken with special cameras that spit out the picture right from the camera after it is snapped. You're not supposed to shake the picture, but most people did anyway because they thought it would help it develop. Andre 3000 found a new expression for dancing when he said: "Shake it like a Polaroid picture." He also helped sell a lot more Polaroid cameras, which had been mostly forgotten since digital cameras became popular. In the video, the girls shake Polaroid pictures. Asked by The Huffington Post how the line "Shake it like a Polaroid picture" came about, Andre 3000 replied, laughing, "I have no idea! In rap, lyric writing is what comes to mind, that was just the visual I had. And you're apparently not even supposed to do that. Same thing with the line about 'all the Beyoncés and Lucy Lius'…when I was writing, her video was on. It's great when that happens, you're not thinking, you're just going with it." When Andre 3000 performed this on various TV shows, he and four dancers would dress with a different theme for each performance. On one show, they might be tennis players, on another, jockeys. His bandmate Big Boi was not part of these performances, and Andre didn't perform "The Way You Move" with him. When they appeared on Saturday Night Live soon after the album was released, they split their performances. "Hey Ya!" was the last performance and the big show stopper at the 2004 Grammy Awards, where Outkast won for Album of the Year. They went with an Indian theme, complete with a teepee and dancers dressed like squaws. The USC marching band came on stage midway through the song and played along. This was the most-downloaded song on iTunes when the service was just starting to pick up steam (it launched in 2001, but went Windows-compatible in 2003). This was a huge boon for both the service and the song, since folks could legally download it for 99 cents without buying the whole album - a very big deal at the time. This got the song on a lot of iPods and helped make it ubiquitous. Thanks to the iTunes exposure, "Hey Ya!" became the first song in history to rack up one million downloads, making it the first song to achieve Platinum status as a download. In 2004, the London band Razorlight recorded this with the London Community Gospel Choir. >> The underground UK Indie act Dan Le Sac VS Scroobius Pip reference the song in their 2007 single "Thou Shalt Always Kill," singing "Thou shalt not shake it like a Polaroid picture" amongst other references to popular culture (thou shalt not wish your girlfriend was a freak like me, thou shalt not scream if you want to go faster, etc.). >> Andre 3000 told the Mail on Sunday October 19, 2008 that people are always commenting on the green tartan trousers that he wore in the song's music video. He explained: "I designed those before I had my own label - Benjamin Bixby - using fabric I found in my hometown. I got a seamstress to sew them up for me, and then the year the single came out I started to see more and more green in people's collections. I don't know if there's such a thing as a royal green, but that's what I like to call it." Outkast were the first group or duo to top the Billboard album and pop charts simultaneously in the 21st century. Over a four week period in January and February 2004, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below led the former survey, whilst this song reigned on the latter list. After Andre 3000 sang "Shake it like a Polaroid picture," Polaroid issued the statement warning, "Shaking or waving can actually damage the image." Andre 3000 wasn't the first to portray every band member in a video set on a variety show: Phil Collins did the same thing in his video for "Two Hearts."
One, two, three, uh My baby don't mess around Because she loves me so And this I know fo sho (uh) But does she really wanna But can't stand to see me walk out the door? (Ah) Don't try to fight the feeling Because the thought alone is killin' me right now (uh) Thank God for Mom and Dad For sticking two together 'Cause we don't know how (c'mon) Hey ya! Hey ya! Hey ya! Hey ya! Hey ya! Hey ya! Hey ya! Hey ya! You think you've got it Oh, you think you've got it But got it just don't get it 'til there's nothin' at all We get together Oh, we get together But separate's always better when there's feelings involved If what they say is "Nothing is forever" Then what makes, then what makes Then what makes, then what makes (what makes, what makes) Love the exception? So why, oh, why, oh Why, oh, why, oh, why, oh Are we so in denial when we know we're not happy here? (Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance) Hey ya! (Uh oh) Hey ya! (Uh oh) Don't want to meet your daddy Hey ya! (Uh oh) Just want you in my Caddy (Uh oh) Hey ya! (Uh oh) Don't want to meet your mama Hey ya! (Uh oh) Just want to make you cum-a (Uh oh) Hey ya! (Uh oh) I'm, I'm, I'm just being honest (Uh oh) I'm just being honest Hey! Alright now Alright now, fellas (Yeah?) Now, what cooler than being cool? (Ice cold!) I can't hear you I say what's, what's cooler than being cool? (Ice cold!) Alright, alright, alright, alright, alright Alright, alright, alright, alright, alright Alright, alright, alright, alright Okay, now ladies (Yeah?) Now, we gon' break this thang down in just a few seconds Now, don't have me break this thang down for nothin' Now, I want to see y'all on y'all baddest behavior Lend me some sugar, I am your neighbor Ah! Here we go Shake it, shake, shake it, shake it, shake, shake it (Uh oh) Shake it, shake, shake it, shake it, shake it (Uh oh) Shake it like a Polaroid picture, hey ya! Shake it, shake, shake it, shake it, shake, shake it Shake it, shake it, shake it, sugar Shake it like a Polaroid picture Now, all Beyonce's, and Lucy Liu's And baby dolls Get on the floor Get on the floor, you know what to do You know what to do You know what to do Hey ya! (Uh oh) Hey ya! (Uh oh) Hey ya! (Uh oh) Hey ya! (Uh oh) Hey ya! (Uh oh) Hey ya! (Uh oh) Hey ya! (Uh oh) Hey ya! (Uh oh)
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oct 18, 2003 | 57 | 69 |
| 2 | Oct 25, 2003 | 41 | 85 |
| 3 | Nov 1, 2003 | 25 | 101 |
| 4 | Nov 8, 2003 | 15 | 111 |
| 5 | Nov 15, 2003 | 13 | 113 |
| 6 | Nov 22, 2003 | 5 | 121 |
| 7 | Nov 29, 2003 | 3 | 123 |
| 8 | Dec 6, 2003 | 2 | 124 |
| 9 | Dec 13, 2003 | 1 | 125 |
| 10 | Dec 20, 2003 | 1 | 125 |
| 11 | Dec 27, 2003 | 1 | 125 |
| 12 | Jan 3, 2004 | 1 | 125 |
| 13 | Jan 10, 2004 | 1 | 125 |
| 14 | Jan 17, 2004 | 1 | 125 |
| 15 | Jan 24, 2004 | 1 | 125 |
| 16 | Jan 31, 2004 | 1 | 125 |
| 17 | Feb 7, 2004 | 1 | 125 |
| 18 | Feb 14, 2004 | 3 | 123 |
| 19 | Feb 21, 2004 | 5 | 121 |
| 20 | Feb 28, 2004 | 5 | 121 |