Released 31 July 2015 Genre Pop rock Producer(s) Julian Bunetta | Format CD
digital download Label Syco | |
Writer(s) Julian Bunetta
Jamie Scott
John Ryan | ||
"Drag Me Down" is a song recorded by English-Irish boy band One Direction for their fifth studio album, Made in the A.M. (2015). The song was released worldwide on 31 July 2015 and marked the band's first single since Zayn Malik's departure in March 2015. "Drag Me Down" debuted atop the charts in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Austria, Australia, and New Zealand. It became the group's first number one single in France and Australia, as well as their fourth number one in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It debuted at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and won the fan-voted 'Best Video Award' at the 2016 Brit Awards.
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Background and release
"Drag Me Down" is marked as One Direction's first single since Zayn Malik's departure in March 2015. The announcement of the release, with no previous promotion or marketing, was done by Liam Payne on his Twitter handle, followed by the rest of the members on 31 July 2015.
Composition
"Drag Me Down" is a midtempo pop rock track written by Julian Bunetta and John Ryan, who wrote and produced several songs on One Direction's previous two albums Midnight Memories (2013) and Four (2014). According to Los Angeles Times's editor Mikael Wood, the production contains springy guitars that recall The Police or "Rude" by Magic!. The song is written in C minor with a tempo of 138 beats per minute.
Critical reception
Jason Lipshutz of Billboard gave the song three and a half out of five stars and commented "For those worried that a four-member incarnation of the group can't get the job done, "Drag Me Down" assuages those fears by keeping the overall quality level high". Lewis Corner of Digital Spy gave the song three out of five stars review and stated that "Drag Me Down" is "one of their most pop-centric releases to date". Past member Zayn Malik took to social media and praised the single, describing it as "sick" and stating that "he was proud of his boys."
Music video
The video for "Drag Me Down" was directed by Ben and Gabe Turner and filmed at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and premiered on Vevo on 21 August 2015. The video includes the band being put through their paces as though they are astronauts preparing for a space mission. It won the fan-voted 'Best Video Award' at the 2016 Brit Awards and as of February 2017, it has been viewed over 590 million times on YouTube.
Live performances
One Direction gave their first performance of the song on their On the Road Again Tour in Indianapolis on 31 July 2015. The song was then performed live as part of a series of free summer concerts in New York City for Good Morning America on 4 August 2015. The band also performed the song on several television programmes including The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Jonathan Ross Show and Alan Carr: Chatty Man.
Usage in media
An instrumental version of the song is heard in the television series Grey's Anatomy (season 13 episode 8).
Commercial performance
"Drag Me Down" sold 349,000 digital copies in the United States and had 17.7 million streams worldwide in its first week of release. It broke the record on Spotify for most streamed track in one day, earning 4.75 million global streams (it has since been surpassed by Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" and "Castle on the Hill" both receiving over 6.18 million global streams). The song also debuted at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, the second-highest debut of the year, with 349,000 downloads sold in its first week (making it the group's third number-one hit on the Digital Songs chart and the boy band's best sales week for a song).
Furthermore, the song topped the charts in twelve countries, including Austria, Australia, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, Scotland, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom.