Released November 4, 2003 | Format CD single | |
Recorded December 30, 2001 — February 12, 2002 Length 4:57 (Album Version)
3:46 (Radio Edit) Label A&M, will.i.am, Interscope Writer(s) will.i.am, Taboo, J. Curtis, George Pajon, Jr. | ||
"Shut Up" is a song by the American group The Black Eyed Peas. The song was released as the second single from their studio album, Elephunk (2003). It is about a disastrous courtship with the chorus consisting of the lines "Shut up, just shut up, shut up".
Contents
Background and release
will.i.am needed a female singer for the song, so he brought in Fergie. She helped out in most of the songs in Elephunk and eventually became the fourth member of The Black Eyed Peas in 2003. While will.i.am, apl.de.ap, and Taboo were making the song, their girlfriends' phone calls would interrupt the session. Will said "The vibe was blown" and Taboo said "So we turned the negative into positive", by adding the problems they were having into the song they were making.
The song contains an uncredited sample of Kurtis Blow's "Tough".
"Shut Up" was not released in the U.S. but became an instant success internationally. "Shut Up" was released as the album's second single in late 2003, after "Where Is the Love?".
The official remix of the song is titled "Shut Up (Knee Deep Remix)". This version includes a rerecorded version of will.i.am's verse and the bridge. It also includes a new verse with apl.de.ap. An edited version of this remix appears on the deluxe version of the group's fifth studio album, The E.N.D, titled "Shut the Phunk Up".
The Knee Deep/E.N.D. Remix samples the song "(Not Just) Knee Deep" by Funkadelic. In December 2010, Funkadelic leader George Clinton filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against will.i.am, Fergie and Universal Music. Clinton claimed that he did not give his permission for the sample and that his signature was forged on the release form.
Chart performances
The single has become an international success, reaching #1 in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Spain, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland. The single also reached #2 in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, and also peaked at #3 in Finland. "Shut Up" has become one of The Black Eyed Peas' most successful singles to date and was only slightly weaker than the preceding single. As of August 2014, it was the 47th best-selling single of the 21st century in France, with 400,000 units sold.
"Shut Up" was The Black Eyed Peas' first song to chart on the Latin America Top 40 (tied with "Hey Mama" which debuted the same week at #35.); it debuted in the week that the chart was created at #28, peaking two weeks later at number #24 in its first run, the single fell off the chart three weeks later, and returned five weeks later at #37 and this time the single peaked at #18.
In Germany, it is the best-selling single of the band behind "I Gotta Feeling", selling 300,000 copies, reaching Platinum. It peaked at #1 and stayed there for 5 weeks, the band's longest time on the pole position.
However, the song never charted in the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States despite being well-charted in other countries. Even though the song didn't chart in the U.S., the radio edit of the song was included on the U.S. Now That's What I Call Music! 15 album.
Music video
The music video features an opera themed around a battle of the sexes. In it, will.i.am and Taboo play Fergie's suitors, and apl.de.ap is the conductor.
The music video has several Andre the Giant Has a Posse-style posters near the stage man. Two posters from the song "Where Is the Love?" are also shown. Kimberly Wyatt and Carmit Bachar from The Pussycat Dolls both make cameos in the video. Travis Barker from Blink 182 and Shifty Shellshock from Crazy Town have a cameo in it as well.