Peak
1
Weeks
27
Score
6,450
Chart Year
2008
The music video for "Single Ladies" was shot immediately after that of "If I Were a Boy",[40] but it received less attention during production than the "higher-gloss, higher-profile video" for "If I Were a Boy".[113] Both videos were shot in black-and-white in New York City and were directed by Jake Nava,[113] with whom Beyoncé had worked on previous music videos including "Crazy in Love" and "Beautiful Liar".[114] "Single Ladies" was choreographed by Frank Gatson Jr. and JaQuel Knight,[3] and incorporates J-Setting choreography.[40] The two music videos premiered on MTV's Total Request Live show on October 13, 2008[7] to reinforce the concept of conflicting personalities.[40] The videos were released to other media outlets on the same date and subsequently included on Beyoncé's remix album with videography, Above and Beyoncé,[115] and the platinum edition of I Am... Sasha Fierce.[116] Three women are dancing. They wear similar leotards and high-heel shoes. The music video, which incorporates J-Setting choreography, was inspired by the Bob Fosse-choreographed performance by Gwen Verdon in "Mexican Breakfast". Beyoncé told Simon Vozick-Levinson of Entertainment Weekly that the inspiration for the video was a 1969 Bob Fosse routine entitled "Mexican Breakfast" seen on The Ed Sullivan Show, which featured Fosse's wife, Gwen Verdon, dancing with two other women.[117][118] "Mexican Breakfast" had become an Internet viral sensation the previous summer after Unk's "Walk It Out" was dubbed over the original mix.[119] Beyoncé wanted to attempt a similar dance and eventually, the choreography of "Single Ladies" was liberally adapted from "Mexican Breakfast": I saw a video on YouTube. [The dancers] had a plain background and it was shot on the crane; it was 360 degrees, they could move around. And I said, 'This is genius.' We kept a lot of the Fosse choreography and added the down-south thing—it's called J-Setting, where one person does something and the next person follows. So it was a strange mixture ... It's like the most urban choreography, mixed with Fosse—very modern and very vintage.[40] Beyoncé wanted a simple music video; it was filmed with minimal alternative camera shots and cuts, and no changes to hairstyles, costumes and sets.[5] According to JaQuel Knight, Beyoncé also wanted the video to feel "good and powerful"[3] and include choreography that could be attempted by anybody.[3] The day the video was shot, the song was divided into three parts.[113] Nava deliberately used lengthy shots so that viewers "would connect with the human endeavor of Beyoncé's awe-inspiring dance",[113] with all the changes in looks, angles, and lighting executed live on-camera because he wanted to keep the feel "very organic and un-gimmicky".[113][120] The styling was inspired by a Vogue photo shoot.[113] In the video Beyoncé wears a titanium roboglove designed by her long-time jeweler, Lorraine Schwartz, to complement her alter ego Sasha Fierce. The glove consists of several pieces, including a ring and a separate component that covers Beyoncé's upper arm. She first wore the roboglove on the red carpet at the MTV Europe Music Awards on November 8, 2008.[121] The video shoot took around twelve hours.[122] Many performances of the song were filmed without interruption, and edited together to give the impression that the final video was filmed in a single take.[31][122] Synopsis In the video for "Single Ladies", emphasis is laid on Beyoncé's more aggressive and sensual side, her alter ego Sasha Fierce. It shows her in an asymmetrical leotard and high-heels, with two backup dancers, Ebony Williams[123] and Ashley Everett.[124] Beyoncé's mother, Tina Knowles, designed the high-cut leotards after seeing something similar in the American musical films A Chorus Line and All That Jazz.[3] The dance routine incorporates many styles, including jazz, tap, and hip hop, and is credited with popularizing J-Setting, a flamboyant lead and follow dance style prominent in many African American gay clubs across Atlanta and used by the all-female Prancing J-Settes dance troupe of Jackson State University.[120][125] The video features Beyoncé and her two companions dancing inside an infinity cove, which alternates between black and white and places the focus on the complex choreography. Throughout the video the women click their heels and shake their hips and legs. However, the main intention is to attract the viewers' attention toward their hands and ring fingers as they do the hand-twirl move.[7] At one point during the video, the dancers run up to a wall, which, according to Frank Gatson Jr., pays homage to Shirley MacLaine's act in the 1969 film Sweet Charity.[3] Toward the end of the video, Beyoncé flashes her own wedding ring on her finger.
In this song, Beyoncé urges all the single ladies to dump their boyfriends if they don't propose. Her man stepped up: After dating for two years, she and Jay-Z got married on April 4, 2008, about five months before this song was released. In an interview with Essence magazine, Beyoncé said when she married Jay-Z in April 2008, she didn't even want an engagement ring, so it can be safely assumed that the Texan singer was performing this song as her feisty alter-ego "Sasha." This upbeat dance track features a beat provided by The-Dream and Tricky Stewart, the duo behind Rihanna's "Umbrella." They wrote the song along with their associate Kuk Harrell and Beyoncé. The-Dream told The Boombox that when writing for women, he likes to tap into their personal stories. "The topics change based on what you're going through in your life," he said. "Beyoncé was going through marriage for the first time in her life when I wrote 'Single Ladies,' but the blessing is in how I was raised and my principal of it, and how I feel about [marriage]. I wrote a song about a relationship that's starting but sings, 'If you like it then you should've put a ring on it,' meaning a lot. [Meaning] that, 'I'm OK with being this type of girl,' which men want to hear, and women want to say." This was released as a single together with "If I Were a Boy." Beyoncé wrote in a letter to her fans around the time of their release, that she was "in a different place right now and I wanted people to see the many sides of me" and indeed the two songs have completely different perspectives. Both this and "If I Were a Boy" were released with accompanying black-and-white videos directed by Jake Nava, who also did the clips for Beyoncé's "Crazy In Love" and "Baby Boy." In the "Single Ladies" video, which features Beyoncé and two look-a-likes dancing, the Texan singer and her pals are pointing in the direction of their wedding fingers, as they urge ladies to find a man who "should put a ring on it." The dancing was inspired by the legendary choreographer and director Bob Fosse. The video has become an internet phenomenon with thousands of homemade versions posted on YouTube. Beyoncé explained to The Sunday Times May 10, 2009 that the idea for the promo was a 1960s film of a Bob Fosse routine, Mexican Breakfast, which featured his wife, Gwen Verdon. She recalled; "I saw a video on YouTube. They had a plain background and it was shot on the crane; it was 360 degrees, they could move around. And I said, 'This is genius.' We kept a lot of the Fosse choreography and added the down-south thing - it's called J-setting, where one person does something and the next person follows. So it was a strange mixture, kind of like the song, which is almost like a nursery rhyme, the 'oh-oh-oh's, and the sinister chords. So it's like the most urban choreography, mixed with Fosse - very modern and very vintage. We'd spent all the budget on the video for (the previous single) If I Were a Boy, and with this song, we didn't even have a treatment. So, it's the least expensive video I've done. Not for a moment did I think, 'This is going to be a movement.'" The lyrics, "Got me tighter in my Deréon jeans" is a plug for House of Deréon, a clothing line from Beyoncé and her mother, Tina Knowles. >> During a performance at the BankAtlantic Center in Florida, Beyoncé halted the concert in the middle of this song. She then handed the microphone over to a male fan who announced: "Beyoncé, you told me if I like it, I need to put a ring on it." He then dropped to one knee, produced a ring and asked his stunned girlfriend to marry him, in front of the 20,000+ crowd. His girlfriend, seemingly shocked, nodded yes. This won the 2009 MTV VMA for Best Video. Earlier in the ceremony the song's loss in the Best Female Video category to Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" led to controversy during the ceremony. Taylor Swift's award acceptance speech was interrupted by Kanye West who grabbed her microphone and started ranting about this song's music clip being "one of the best videos of all time!" Swift was unable to complete her acceptance speech, however later when Beyoncé was receiving her award for this song's video, she invited the teen singer back onto stage to finish her speech. Beyoncé reflected on the iconic video to Billboard magazine: "Out of all my videos, 'Single Ladies' was the least expensive and took the least amount of time, and it ended up being the most iconic. But once we got on the set, it was like, wait a minute. This is something special." Beyoncé triumphed at the 2010 Grammys, winning six awards, a new record for the most Grammys won in a single year by a solo female performer. "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" won three of them: Song of the Year, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song. Beyoncé also won for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance ("Halo"), Best Traditional R&B Performance ("At Last") and Best Contemporary R&B Album (I Am… Sasha Fierce). Beyoncé was joined by her girls from Destiny's Child - Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams - when she performed a snippet of this song at halftime of the Super Bowl in 2013. The Church of England co-owns this song through investing in music rights business Hipgnosis. Other tunes they co-own include Rihanna's "Umbrella" and Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack." A version by the duo Pomplamoose blew up on YouTube in 2009. In their cover, lead singer Nataly Dawn sings it deadpan while her bandmate Jack Conte (who later founded Patreon) bounces around on different instruments and effects units. It led to a Hyundai commercial for Pomplamoose and a fleet of new subscribers that allowed them to sustain themselves mostly on YouTube for years to come.
All the single ladies (All the single ladies) All the single ladies (All the single ladies) All the single ladies (All the single ladies) All the single ladies Now put your hands up Up in the club, just broke up I'm doing my own little thing You decided to dip and now you wanna trip 'Cause another brother noticed me I'm up on him, he up on me Don't pay him any attention 'Cause I cried my tears for three good years You can't be mad at me 'Cause if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it Don't be mad once you see that he want it 'Cause if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it Don't be mad once you see that he want it If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it I got gloss on my lips, a man on my hips Hold me tighter than my Dereon jeans Acting up, drink in my cup I can care less what you think I need no permission, did I mention? Don't pay him any attention 'Cause you had your turn, but now you gon' learn What it really feels like to miss me 'Cause if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it Don't be mad once you see that he want it 'Cause if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it Don't be mad once you see that he want it If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh Don't treat me to these things of the world I'm not that kind of girl Your love is what I prefer, what I deserve Here's a man that makes me then takes me And delivers me to a destiny, to infinity and beyond Pull me into your arms Say I'm the one you want If you don't, you'll be alone And like a ghost I'll be gone All the single ladies All the single ladies All the single ladies All the single ladies All the single ladies All the single ladies All the single ladies Now put your hands up Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh 'Cause if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it Don't be mad once you see that he want it If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it Don't be mad once you see that he want it If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it Oh, oh, oh
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nov 1, 2008 | 72 | 54 |
| 2 | Nov 8, 2008 | 56 | 70 |
| 3 | Nov 15, 2008 | 44 | 82 |
| 4 | Nov 22, 2008 | 39 | 87 |
| 5 | Nov 29, 2008 | 28 | 98 |
| 6 | Dec 6, 2008 | 2 | 124 |
| 7 | Dec 13, 2008 | 1 | 125 |
| 8 | Dec 20, 2008 | 2 | 124 |
| 9 | Dec 27, 2008 | 1 | 125 |
| 10 | Jan 3, 2009 | 1 | 125 |
| 11 | Jan 10, 2009 | 1 | 125 |
| 12 | Jan 17, 2009 | 2 | 124 |
| 13 | Jan 24, 2009 | 2 | 124 |
| 14 | Jan 31, 2009 | 2 | 124 |
| 15 | Feb 7, 2009 | 3 | 123 |
| 16 | Feb 14, 2009 | 2 | 124 |
| 17 | Feb 21, 2009 | 5 | 121 |
| 18 | Feb 28, 2009 | 9 | 117 |
| 19 | Mar 7, 2009 | 11 | 115 |
| 20 | Mar 14, 2009 | 16 | 110 |