Bad Girls (M.I.A. song)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

"Bad Girls"
Single by M.I.A.
from the album Vicki Leekx and Matangi
Released31 January 2012
StudioHit Factory Criteria (Miami), Circle House (Miami)
Genre
Length3:47
LabelInterscope
Songwriter(s)
  • Maya "M.I.A." Arulpragasam
  • Nate "Danja" Hills
  • Marcella Araica
Danja
M.I.A. singles chronology
"Internet Connection"
(2011) 		"Bad Girls"
(2012) 		"Give Me All Your Luvin'"
(2012)
Music video
"Bad Girls" on
YouTube

"Bad Girls" is a song by British recording artist

Floyd Nathaniel "Danja" Hills, and produced by Danja. The song was M.I.A's first release following her departure from the UK's XL Recordings in 2011, and was released through Interscope Records in the US on 31 January 2012. A shorter version of the song appeared on Vicki Leekx, a mixtape released for free online on 31 December 2010. "Bad Girls" was released as a digital download
a day after its world premiere on radio and online.

The track is a

2010s decade
.

An accompanying music video for the song was shot in Ouarzazate, Morocco in solidarity with the women to drive movement, premiering on 3 February 2012. Directed by Romain Gavras, the video garnered universal acclaim and accolades. The song charted in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Korea, Switzerland, the UK and the US, solely on downloads, and was distributed in physical format on 12 March 2012.

Background and release

"Bad Girls" first appeared on M.I.A.'s self-released mixtape Vicki Leekx (2010), shortly following the release of her third studio album Maya earlier that year.[5] Recording sessions for the song transpired in Miami, Florida; M.I.A worked with Danja, a producer who previously collaborated with recording artists such as Madonna and Nelly Furtado.[6] The artwork for "Bad Girls" was released on 25 January 2012,[6] while photos taken by Bernard Coulter of M.I.A. with cowriters Danja and Marcella, who were listening to the record's main mix in a Jeep, were revealed on the rapper's official website and her Twitter page.[7][non-primary source needed]

Preceding its release, "Bad Girls" was premiered on audio sharing site

BBC Radio 6 rotation,[9] and reached the top of the playlist on Italian radio station Radio DeeJay for the week dated 10 March.[10] The single was released in physical format in the United Kingdom on 12 March 2012.[11]

Remixes

"Bad Girls" contains three remixes: the N.A.R.S Remix featuring rappers Missy Elliott and Azealia Banks; the Switch Remix, which still features Missy Elliott but also features Rye Rye; and the Leo Justi remix.

American rapper Jay-Z utilises M.I.A.'s flow from "Bad Girls" for the bridge to his song "Tom Ford".

Composition

M.I.A. "Bad Girls" (2013)
"Bad Girls" was noted for its combination of Middle Eastern sounds and a pop chorus.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

"Bad Girls" is a

syncopated drums and an SOS signal rhythm.[14][15] Nick Levine of NME commented that the song's chorus was one of those "boffo pop choruses" that M.I.A. could toss off when she wanted to, while commending the chorus as being in the same vein as that of "XXXO", a track from M.I.A.'s third studio album Maya (2010).[12] Rolling Stone thought that "Bad Girls" was the catchiest song the singer had released since "Paper Planes" from Kala (2007).[16] The song's instrumentation consists of background bleeps and blorps mixed down, and the percussion turned up from, but still recalling, the original mixtape version. Because of these, the song exhibits what David Marchese of Spin describes as a "vaguely sinister" rhythm slither.[17]

Lyrically, the song explores themes of sexual empowerment. M.I.A. professes "Live fast, die young, bad girls do it well" and "My chain hits my chest when I'm banging on the radio" in a nonchalant mannered chant.

verse consists of M.I.A. declaring in many references to cars "My chain hits my chest when I’m banging on the dashboard / My chain hits my chest when I’m banging on the radio / Yeah back it, back it, yeah pull up to the bumper game / With a signal, cover me, cause I’m changing lanes / Had a handle on it, my life, but I broke it / When I get to where I’m going, gonna have you saying it."[19] She continues with the line "I had a handle on it / My life, but I broke it" in an emotionally key delivery, a view shared by Will Hermes of Rolling Stone who notes that in an anthem to recklessly empowered car sex, is "surprisingly" melancholy.[20]

Critical response

"Bad Girls" was lauded by music critics.

About.com rated the song three and a half stars (out of five), praising its chorus and composition and writing that "this may be just be the kind of curveball that the artist M.I.A. might want to throw at the moment."[13] Molly Lambert of Pitchfork Media commented that "Bad Girls" shows that the "pop instincts and talents" of M.I.A. "remain as sharp as ever."[15] Priya Elan of the NME praised the song, writing "With his help this is MIA as you've never heard her before, taking her pan-global pop smarts and injecting them with a huge growth hormone... Damn straight, MIA, damn straight."[24]

In his 3.5 out of five star review, Will Hermes of

PopCrush asserted that the track blended hip-hop with more "exotic" sounds, in this case a "hypnotic" Indian-sounding vibe.[19] Likewise, in his review of the mixtape, Mike Schiller of PopMatters described "Bad Girls" as the most "obvious call back" to the sound that brought M.I.A. her fame.[26] In consumer guide for MSN Music, critic Robert Christgau named "Bad Girls" as one of three highlights from the Vicki Leekx mixtape.[27]

In 2019, Pitchfork ranked the song 27th on their list of the 200 best songs of the 2010s decade.[28]

Chart performance

Without being released as a single, "Bad Girls" debuted at number 62 on the

French Singles Chart, before climbing to number 61 on the week ending 11 March 2012. "Bad Girls" was voted #99 on Triple J Hottest 100 of 2012
.

As of 2013, the song has sold 409,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen Soundscan.[31]

Music video

Background

"It was dope to have so many people from so many different backgrounds speaking so many different languages come together to create something that we believed in. I thought I was gonna die on the shoot when I saw the drifting. It was a four-day shoot so everyone was on edge the whole time specifically ME when I had to do bluesteel singing to the camera while the cars did doughnuts on the wet road ten feet away. In my mind I was thinking how I was gonna deliver the video to Vice with no legs."

— M.I.A. describing the shoot for the video to "Bad Girls".[32]

M.I.A. announced via

Noisey, Vice's new music channel on YouTube, on 2 February 2012 at a total length of four minutes and twelve seconds.[32] Principal photography for the video was done in Ouarzazate, Morocco over a period of four days.[32]

Synopsis and production

M.I.A. in a still from the music video

The setting of the music video features crumbled architecture, sustained over years of attack; smouldering oil tankers; young men in

GIF imagery and digital weirdo phase" of her early work, while feeling the singer remained "as flashy" and confident as ever.[38]

Reception

Contemporary critics universally commended the music video for its themes and production values. The video was both heralded and criticised for confronting

Arab stereotypes.[39][40] Claire Suddath of Time agreed that at first glance, the video appeared to be a political statement on women drivers in Saudi Arabia and a stylish, aesthetically pleasing piece, stating that the video was fun either way and that audiences could all agree that women and men should be able to "drag race, pop wheelies and drive their cars on two wheels" equally.[41] Dina Dabbous of Jordanian publication Al Bawaba praised M.I.A. for presenting an accurate picture of male customs in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, continuing "if she's being accused of stereotyping, then she’s turning the oriental fantasy on its head when she has Arabian women dressed in khaki styled, though still Arabian, dress or gear, toting guns and strutting their stuff with a swagger unknown to the conservative female society that has women closed off or 'haremed' from the male gaze. M.I.A's girls are a far-cry from the harem-veiled subversive mysterious women of the oriental fantasy in their floaty feminine veils, if we're accusing her of feeding stereotypes. She's toying with the militarized West infiltrating Arabia. Sexing it up a notch to have her 'bad girls' taking male guns and aggro".[39]

Comfort Clinton of

the government for refusing to give them a driver's licence, the first high-profile legal challenge to the country's ban on female drivers.[47]

Naomi Zeichner of

politics of oil, the West's influence in the Middle East, a career as a graduate student etc.". He concluded that the video was further example of what made M.I.A.'s "protest-in-the-name-of-what-exactly? so riveting, "important,"" and almost prophetic, saying "She flatters our desire for authenticity, for a real spokesperson who apprehends the full circumference of the planet, and then she goes and makes a bright, gaudy T-shirt of it all. If she has sold out – if she represented anything in the first place – then she's shown us exactly what our dollar can buy: an absolutely stunning video starring some of the Middle East's finest stunt drivers."[36] Writing in Seattle Weekly, Todd Hamm described it as the best music video of the year so far.[48]

The video won

Best Short Form Music Video where it lost to Rihanna's "We Found Love" again. In 2019, Stereogum ranked it number one on their list of the best music videos of the 2010s.[49]

Use in media

Singer Gwen Stefani soundtracked her Fall/Winter L.A.M.B. fashion line presentation with a remix of the song during New York Fashion Week in February 2012.[50] To celebrate their 60th anniversary, French clothing company Moncler commissioned 150 ice skaters to perform a routine to "Bad Girls" in Central Park for their 2012 New York Fashion Week Fall/Winter finale.[51] The song was used to soundtrack several shows during London Fashion Week and Milan Fashion Week the same month.[52][53]

"Bad Girls" is featured in episodes of several television series:

  • 90210: "Blue Ivy" (Season 4)
  • Gossip Girl: "It Girl, Interrupted" (Season 5)
  • Skins (UK version): "Liv"
    (Series 6)
  • Orphan Black: "Natural Selection" (first episode of series)
  • The Mindy Project: "Pilot" and "Take Me with You" (season finale) (both Season 1). Also in "The Parent Trap" (season 4). This song usually plays when she is doing an important delivery. It played in the pilot episode when we first see her at work during a delivery for a patient that was an immigrant and had no insurance. Then we hear this song play again when she and the other doctors deliver triplets (their first time delivering triplets). Most recently, we see it in the episode "The Parent Trap' when she delivers a baby of the first patient of her fertility clinic.
  • Supernatural
    : "Baby" (Season 11)
  • Season 41, Episode 4 skit
  • Class: "The Metaphysical Engine, or What Quill Did" (Series 1)

The song is also heard in the trailers for

Bad Girls Club and Vampire Academy.[54] In addition, the song was used in the films Identity Thief, Son of a Gun, The Bling Ring and Vampire Academy.[55] In 2014, "Bad Girls" was featured on the soundtrack of the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC versions of Grand Theft Auto V.[56]

This song was featured at the end of Ken Block's Gymkhana Eight: Ultimate Exotic Playground; Dubai[57]

Track listing

UK digital download

  1. "Bad Girls" – 3:48

Remixes

  1. "Bad Girls" (N.A.R.S. Remix) [featuring Missy Elliott and Azealia Banks] – 3:58
  2. "Bad Girls" (Switch Remix) [featuring Missy Elliott and Rye Rye] – 3:23
  3. "Bad Girls" (Leo Justi Remix) – 3:55

Credits and personnel

Charts

Chart (2012) Peak
position
Australia (ARIA)[58] 81
Australia Urban (ARIA)[59] 29
Belgium (Ultratip Bubbling Under Flanders)[60] 38
Canada (Canadian Hot 100)[61] 92
Canada (Canadian Digital Songs)[62] 66
France (
SNEP)[63]
 61
Ireland (IRMA)[64] 80
South Korea International Singles (
Gaon)[65]
 52
Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)[66] 61
UK Singles (OCC)[67]
 43
UK Airplay (Official Charts Company)[68] 62
UK Hip Hop/R&B (OCC)[69]
 14
US
Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles (Billboard)[70]
 5
US
Dance/Electronic Digital Songs (Billboard)[71]
 10
US R&B/Hip-Hop Digital Songs (Billboard)[72] 40
US YouTube (Billboard)[73] 9

Certifications

Region Certification Certified units/sales
United Kingdom (BPI)[74] Gold 400,000‡

‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

Release history

Region Date Format Label
United States[75] 31 January 2012 Digital download Self-released/Interscope
Worldwide[76] 1 February 2012
United States[77] 28 February 2012 Rhythmic radio
Worldwide[11] 12 March 2012 CD single Mercury Records/Interscope

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