“Do I Wanna Know?” is a song by English indie rock band Arctic Monkeys from their fifth studio album AM. The song was released as a single on 19 June 2013 together with an accompanying music video, and is now available for digital download via iTunes. A 7" vinyl edition of the single was released on 22 July 2013, with a B-side titled “2013”.
The song was first played live on 22 May 2013 in Ventura, California, at the first concert of the Arctic Monkeys’ AM Tour. During the tour, “Do I Wanna Know?” is played as the opening number.
“Do I Wanna Know?” has peaked at number 11 in the UK Singles Chart, charted in several other countries, and was the first Arctic Monkeys song to have ever entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, peaking at number 70 in March 2014.
Composition
In terms of both lyrical content and aesthetic style, “Do I Wanna Know?” picks up from where the band’s 2012 single “R U Mine?” left off. The guitar riffs are strikingly similar, but the song is more downtempo. The track continues the hard-edged, rocking sound of their previous album Suck It and See. In concert, singer and guitarist Alex Turner uses a Vox 12-string electric guitar.
Music video
A music video for “Do I Wanna Know?”, directed by David Wilson with animation agency Blinkink, was first released onto YouTube on 18 June 2013. It has been viewed over 70 million times, and as of 11 January 2014, it has surpassed “Fluorescent Adolescent”’s view count and has become the most viewable video by the Arctic Monkeys.
The video starts with a black background and simple visuals of sound waves that vibrate in synchronization to the voice of the band’s vocalist Alex Turner and illustrate the beat of the song. Other colours of waves appear as the song progresses, vibrating to different tracks of the song’s instruments. It then turns into faster, full-colour animations of women (including the one on the single’s cover art), car races, birds, fish, and others. Towards the end of the music video, scenes transition between each other through a black screen with a white wave stretching from one side of the screen to the other, reminiscent of the opening scenes. The last scene is a still of a white line on a black background forming the letters ‘AM’ in the middle of the screen.
Commercial performance
Despite a midweek on air on sale release, the song entered the UK Singles Chart at number 11, making it the band’s highest charting single since “Fluorescent Adolescent” in 2007. This was subsequently outperformed by the next single “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?”, which debuted at number 8. As of 9 November 2013, “Do I Wanna Know?” has spent 32 weeks in the UK Top 100, this is the longest run of any Arctic Monkeys single. The single was awarded a silver certification by the BPI on 13 September 2013, indicating shipments in excess of 200,000 units; it is the fourth Arctic Monkeys single to do so.
The song has had moderate success worldwide, charting in countries such as Australia, France, Belgium, Ireland and Israel. In January 2014, the song reached number 1 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, the group’s first #1 single in the United States and their first appearance on that chart since “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” peaked at number 7 in 2006. On 28 March, the track became the 30th song to have occupied the Billboard Alternate Chart top spot for 10 weeks or more. It also became the band’s first single to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 70 in March 2014.
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