Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)
"Dark Horse" is a song by American singer Katy Perry featuring American rapper Juicy J. It was originally released on September 17, 2013, by Capitol Records as the first promotional single from Perry's fourth studio album, Prism. Three months later, it was released as the third official single on December 17. Both artists co-wrote the song with its producers, Max Martin, Cirkut, and Dr. Luke, alongside Sarah Hudson. It was conceived by Perry and Hudson during a writing session in Perry's hometown of Santa Barbara, California, and Juicy J was later commissioned for a verse on the song. The song was recorded at Playback Recording Studios in Santa Barbara, alongside MXM Studios, based in Stockholm, Sweden, Luke's in the Boo, based in Malibu, California, and Secret Garden Studios, based in Montecito, California.
"Dark Horse" combines the genres of trap, hip hop, pop-rap and electropop, replicating what has been described as a "Southern rap-techno mashup", and is heavily influenced by witch house, an underground electronic music genre that features occult themes, trap drums, and the heavy bass lines featured in the track. The track features a minimal production, with a "seductive" and "mature" tone to Perry's vocals, while Juicy J is featured on the song's intro and rapped third verse. Perry, in interviews, said she wanted the song to have a "witchy, spell-y kind of black magic-y idea", so she wrote it from the perspective of a witch warning a man not to fall in love with her because if he does, she will be his last. The song was part of a competition sponsored by Pepsi in which fans could vote via Twitter on whether they would prefer either "Dark Horse" or "Walking on Air" to be released as the first promotional single from Prism.
"Dark Horse" was a commercial success, charting at number one in Canada, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United States. It also reached the top ten in almost 20 countries, including New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Venezuela, as well as on the Digital Songs chart of Billboard magazine. Billboard credits "Dark Horse" for helping cement trap music's place on the charts. Perry first performed the song live at the 2013 iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas on September 20, 2013. The song's first major television performance was at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards on January 26, 2014. "Dark Horse" was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards. It won Single of the Year at the 2014 American Music Awards. The song was certified diamond in Australia, Brazil, Canada, and the United States. "Dark Horse" has sold 13.2 million units, becoming the second best-selling song worldwide for 2014. In 2015, the song was performed at Pepsi's Super Bowl XLIX halftime show in Glendale, Arizona.
In 2014, Flame, a Christian rap artist, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Perry and the other songwriters, claiming that "Dark Horse" copied from his 2008 song "Joyful Noise". On July 29, 2019, a federal jury ruled in favor of Flame and the co-plaintiffs Da' T.R.U.T.H. and Chike Ojukwu. The jury ordered Perry, her collaborators, and associated labels to pay $2.78 million in damages; of which Perry was ordered to pay $550,000. However, in part due to a similar judgment that found Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" clear of copyright infringement in the Ninth Circuit, the jury award was vacated on appeal in March 2020.
Production and release
Inspired by the 1996 film The Craft, Perry and singer-songwriter Sarah Hudson wrote the first version of "Dark Horse" in Perry's hometown of Santa Barbara, California. Perry described the song as a "juxtaposition", as it mixed her, a pop music artist, with an "urban kind of hip-hop-flavored background soundtrack"; and its lyrics as "witchy and dark", written from the perspective of "a witch warning man to not fall in love with ", and if so, she would be his last. Perry then asked producer Dr. Luke to contact one of his Kemosabe Records artists, American rapper Juicy J, for a guest verse. Juicy J complimented Perry as having a "very professional" work ethic and being substantially involved in the song's development. He said: "My verse I did on that song, she was singing it. She's really a genius, she was by the mixing board and telling the guy what to take in and take out. She's really hands-on with her music, she knows music.""Dark Horse" was recorded and engineered at Luke's in the Boo in Malibu, Conway Recording Studios in Hollywood, Playback Recording Studios in Santa Barbara, California, and Secret Garden Studios in Montecito, as well as MXM Studios in Stockholm, Sweden. It was engineered by Peter Carlsson, Mike "Crazy Mike" Foster, Clint Gibbs, Sam Holland, and Michael Ilbert. They were assisted by Eric Eylands, Rachael Findlen, Justin Fox, Elliot Lanam, and Cory Bice. It was mixed by Şerban Ghenea, while John Hanes served as the engineer for mix. All instrumentation and programming was done by Dr. Luke, Max Martin, and Cirkut.
In a press release on August 20, 2013, Pepsi announced a partnership with Perry to promote her fourth studio album Prism: a social "tweet-to-unlock" voting program, encouraging fans to tweet the hashtag #KATYNOW in exchange for song titles and lyrics. The chosen tracks for the campaign were "Walking on Air" and "Dark Horse". After the samples were revealed, fans could vote for which one they wanted to have an early release on digital retailers. The winner was "Dark Horse", which was released on September 17, 2013, on the iTunes Store. Due to its commercial success, it was sent to contemporary hit and rhythmic radio stations on December 17, 2013, as Prisms third official single.
Composition
"Dark Horse" is a trap, hip hop, pop rap and electropop song. which is styled in "Southern rap-techno mashup", and has a length of three minutes and thirty-five seconds. Musically, the verses are built around icy rhythms and chopped and screwed vocal samples, while the chorus' feature Perry singing into a gradual crescendo. The song contains a grimy, "incredibly simplistic" production. According to Kathy Iandoli of MSN Entertainment, "Dark Horse" contains a mixture of elements from "trippy pop", EDM, and dubstep. According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com, "Dark Horse" is written in the key of B minor. It follows a chord progression of G – D – Bm – Bm/A, and the vocals range from the low note of B3 to the high note of D5. "Dark Horse" has a tempo of 132 beats per minute in half-time style typical of trap music. A writer for the Winnipeg Free Press described the song as "brooding, borderline sleazy trap-pop excursion that comes across like a stripped-down version of 'E.T.' mixed with 'Grindin'' by The Clipse", before going on to call it unexpected, unconventional, and unstoppable.Critical reception
Marc Hogan from Spin called the lyrics a "cliché salad" but believed that the song had potential to become a hit due to its "soaring hooks" and "sleekly sculpted production". Reviewing the song for Billboard, Jason Lipshutz said that by exploring trap-influenced music, Perry "score" and "slay". Digital Spy's Robert Copsey questioned the decision to not have a proper chorus in "Dark Horse" and the inclusion of Juicy J, though he praised the "sleazy" beat and "sultry" vocals from Katy Perry. He gave the track a rating of four stars out of five. Contributor Dylan Mial of Blogcritics said the "juxtaposition" of Perry's vocals and Juicy J's rap brought "the ingredients for a perfect musical storm" and favored Perry for the "uniqueness" of the single.Keith Murphy from Vibe called the track "infectiously sexy", while John Walker from MTV was similarly positive about the song, though he wrote that Juicy's verse was "phoned-in". Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine likened the song to avant-garde band Art of Noise's song "Moments In Love" and called it a "continuation" of "E.T.", and further labelled it as a "standout" from Prism. While she did not give her opinion of the song as a whole, Helen Brown from the publication The Daily Telegraph criticized Juicy J for his "daft" rap. For AbsolutePunk, Craig Manning classified "Dark Horse" as Prisms worst song, while also panning the rapper's contribution. Marah Eakin from The A.V. Club was not entirely critical of the song, though she noted that it was not among "Perry's best".
Consequence of Sound's Chris Bosman had a mixed response—while he praised the song for feeling "vital" and "forward-moving", he criticized the guest vocals and nonetheless deemed the trap influence "trap for soccer moms". Writing for ABC News, Mesfin Fekadu commented that "her team fare better" in the song and observed that the "Southern hip-hop and electronic flavors" present on it were factors that made it "work". Pop music website Idolator's Sam Lansky opined that the "weird trap-lite" of the song "never quite coalesces".
Accolades
Awards and nominations
Listicles
Commercial performance
"Dark Horse" debuted at number seventeen on the Billboard Hot 100 and at number four on the Hot Digital Songs chart with 194,000 downloads sold for the week ending October 5, 2013.Following its release as a single, after several weeks of ascending the chart, "Dark Horse" reached number one in the United States on the chart dated February 8, 2014. It marked Perry's ninth US number one and Juicy J's first, and remained atop the chart for four consecutive weeks. It spent 22 weeks in the top ten and 57 weeks on the chart in total, marking Perry's longest stay in both the top ten and on the Hot 100 itself. Besides its success on the Hot 100, "Dark Horse" also performed extremely well on Billboard's component charts, topping the Mainstream Top 40 chart for five weeks, giving Perry her record-tying eleventh number-one, the Hot Dance Club Songs chart, becoming her record-extending thirteenth consecutive number one, and the Rhythmic chart, becoming her second number one, while reaching numbers two and six on the Adult Pop Songs and the Adult Contemporary charts respectively. As of August 2020, the song has sold 6.4 million copies in the nation, and has been certified eleven-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
In Canada, "Dark Horse" debuted at number eight on the Canadian Hot 100 chart, and peaked at number one for two weeks, becoming the Perry's tenth number-one single in the country and Juicy J's first, and has since been certified seven-times platinum by Music Canada for sales of 560,000 units. "Dark Horse" peaked at number two on the New Zealand Singles Chart becoming Perry's twelfth top ten, and was certified double platinum by the RMNZ.
In Australia, the song was not eligible to chart on the ARIA Top 100 Singles Chart as it was seen as a digital-only release, but peaked at number five on the ARIA Top 50 Digital Tracks and was certified eight-times platinum by the ARIA, for sales of 560,000 units. "Dark Horse" also saw major success in Europe. In the UK, it peaked at number four on the UK Singles Chart, becoming her thirteenth top ten hit, while peaking at number three in both Ireland and Scotland. The song topped the charts in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Poland, while reaching number two in Austria, Norway, and Sweden, number three in Belgium, number four in Switzerland and the Czech Republic, number five in Italy, number six in Germany, France, and Denmark, number eight in Hungary, and number nine in Spain. It earned certifications in Sweden, Italy, Norway, the UK, Mexico, Germany, and Belgium. "Dark Horse" sold 13.2 million units worldwide in 2014, finishing as the second best-selling song of the year according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.