Format CD
digital download Length 3:40 | Genre Post-disco Label A&M
Interscope | |
B-side "We Went as Far as We Felt Like Goin'" Released September 25, 2006 (2006-09-25) | ||
"I Don't Need a Man" is a song by American girl group The Pussycat Dolls from their debut studio album PCD (2005). The song was written and produced by Rich Harrison, with additional writing from Nicole Scherzinger and Kara DioGuardi. The song was released as the fifth single from the album on September 25, 2006 in the United Kingdom. "I Don't Need a Man" is an uptempo post-disco song about masturbation where the group self-objectify themselves and promote independence from men. It became their fifth top-ten single to enter the UK Singles Chart.
Contents
Background
"I Don't Need a Man" was written and produced by Rich Harrison, with additional writing from Nicole Scherzinger and Kara DioGuardi. Ron Fair provided additional and vocal production for the song. The official instrumental version of this song, that is featured on the CD single, contains some other samples than the album version. The single's B-side is a cover version of "We Went as Far as We Felt Like Going", written by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan. This was a 1975 single for Labelle and a follow-up to their previous hit "Lady Marmalade" (also on their album Phoenix). The Pussycat Dolls' version first appeared in September 2004 on the soundtrack to the animated film Shark Tale. An extended play—I Don't Need a Man EP—was released digitally on June 19, 2007 in North America. C. K. Mann of Ghana's Asafo Beesoun is sampled at the beginning.
Composition
"I Don't Need a Man" is a post-disco song with a length of three minutes and thirty-nine seconds. According to EMI Music Publishing's digital sheet music for the song, "I Don't Need a Man" is composed in the key of D minor and set in common time, with a moderate groove of 105 beats per minute. The group's vocal range spans from the low note of A3 to the high note of D5. "I Don't Need a Man" has been described as a song that finds the self-objectifying group flipping the script for female empowerment. Caroline Bologna of The Huffington Post writes that the song is about masturbation. Stephen Thomas Erlewine likened the song to the music of Beyoncé.
Chart performance
On the UK Singles Chart, I Don't Need a Man debuted at number 21 selling 5,448 digital downloads for the week ending September 25, 2006. The following week, it climbed 14 positions to its peak of number seven with sales of 13,220, giving the group their fifth consecutive top-ten single; additionally it topped the UK R&B Chart.
Music video
The music video for "I Don't Need a Man" was directed by Chris Applebaum and was first announced and described by group member Ashley Roberts in a blog entry on their official website.
On August 25, 2006, the music video premiered on The Box in the UK, and on September 14, it premiered on MuchOnDemand in Canada. The video took the number one spot on MMMTop10.com multiple times. It reached number nine on MTV's Total Request Live and number one for 3 week on the MTV Asia Chart Attack. The video was uploaded to the iTunes Store on April 18, 2007.
The first verse begins with Roberts doing her nails dressed in white clothing. The video features Nicole Scherzinger singing, Carmit Bachar doing her hair and Jessica Sutta having a shower as they prepare to go out. In the chorus, the Dolls mimic a hair salon scene. During the second verse, the video shows Kimberly Wyatt in a bath getting ready to go out, Melody Thornton putting on her make-up and Scherzinger singing. In the second chorus, it shows the Dolls performing a dance routine before breaking into different slides of the Dolls dancing separately. Following this, it shows Scherzinger and Thornton singing "Let it Go", a bridge in the middle of the song but actually Scherzinger is singing to Bachar's vocals. This then breaks to more dance clips of the Dolls with Scherzinger singing. The video concludes with the Dolls performing another dance routine against a black background in the final chorus before confetti falls down.
To stay true to the Dolls live show routines, the video features the silhouette of bodies before the second verse of the song. The main background color for the song is pink, contributing to the girly theme. There are two versions of the video: one full-version and the other which edits dance routines with clips/frames previously shown in the video. The video of the single "Zgodna Mlada" of the duet Trik FX is a copy of the "I Don't Need a Man" video.
Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of PCD.