“Grenade” by Bruno Mars

song info

    “Grenade” (official video) is an R&B pop song recorded by Bruno Mars.

    This song was nominated for the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards Video of the Year, Best Pop Video, and Best Male Video.

link to the static song information page for this song:
http://www.thissideofsanity.com/music/songs/gr/grenade.php

    Summary quotation from Wikipedia:

    “Grenade” is a song performed by American singer-songwriter and producer Bruno Mars from his debut studio album Doo-Wops & Hooligans. Initially released as a promotional single [on iTunes] on September 28, 2010, it was later announced to be the album’s second single. The first track from the album, it was written by Mars along with his production team The Smeezingtons with Brody Brown, Claude Kelly, and Andrew Wyatt.

    Critical reception has been mostly positive, with reviewers praising the vocals and emotional lyrics of the heartbreak song. It has peaked at number one in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Poland, the United Kingdom, and on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming his third number-one single in both the United States and the United Kingdom. A music video was released in mid-November 2010. It is the second-most bestselling digital single of all time, beaten by a difference of 2.3 million units by yet another Bruno Mars song: “Just The Way You Are”.

    “Grenade” was nominated for three Grammy Awards, including for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and the newly-introduced Best Pop Solo Performance, losing all of them to British singer Adele.

Background

    Doo-Wops & Hooligans spawned two iTunes Store-exclusive promotional singles prior to its release in October 2010—“Liquor Store Blues”, which features Damian Marley, and “Grenade”. The song was released on September 28, 2010. In an interview with Idolator, Mars revealed songwriter-producer Benny Blanco played him an unreleased track with similar lyrical themes, which served as the song’s inspiration. He also expressed desire to release the song as a single, being his “personal favorite”. In an interview with Digital Spy, Mars revealed plans to follow hit single “Just the Way You Are” with “Grenade”.

Composition

    “Grenade” is a pop and R&B ballad, co-written by Mars with songwriting-production team The Smeezingtons, Brody Brown, Claude Kelly, and Andrew Wyatt. Sheet music published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing shows that “Grenade” is set in the key of D minor and was published in common time, with a moderate tempo of 108 beats per minute. Mars’ vocals span from A₃ to D₅ and background vocals are heard throughout. The song starts softly but crescendoes both musically and lyrically toward the climax of the song, backed by “pulsating, synthesized beats”. According to Jon Caramanica of The New York Times, the song contains elements of 1980s pop and is accompanied by drums similar to those used by Kanye West. About.com’s Bill Lamb noted “classical pop song construction” and The New Zealand Herald’s Scott Kara described its beats as Shakira-esque. The song contains elements of Jeff Tweedy’s “I’ll Fight”. Lyrically, the “Grenade” contains masochistic themes and tells the story of heartbreak caused by a failed relationship: “Gave you all I had / And you tossed it in the trash”. The chorus has Mars singing, “I’d catch a grenade for ya,” and speaks of unrequited love when the subject girl of his affections “won’t do the same”. As Mars himself simply told Blues & Soul: “‘Grenade’ represents the OTHER side of love - where you’re in love with a woman and you know for a fact that she doesn’t love you the way you love HER.”

Music video

    A music video was released on November 19, 2010, directed by NABIL. It involves Mars’s efforts to sing to a woman he loves after dragging an upright piano with a rope tied to it through Los Angeles. He wears a suit and encounters a gang and a pit bull along the way. When he reaches the woman’s house and finds out she is with another man, he drags himself and the piano in front of a train. As the train approaches Bruno, the video cuts to black. Scenes also feature the singer singing in a dark bedroom, looking out of a rainy window.

    In a behind-the-scenes video, Mars explained, “The concept of the video is my struggle, to tell this girl I’d do anything for her, so I’m going as far as dragging a piano to get to her just so I can sing my heart out.”

    The video earned Mars three nominations at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, in Best Male Video, Best Pop Video and Video of the Year.

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