Pumped Up Kicks
"Pumped Up Kicks" is a song by American indie pop band Foster the People. It was released as the band's debut single in September 2010, and the following year was included on their EP Foster the People and their debut album, Torches. "Pumped Up Kicks" became the group's breakthrough hit and was one of the most popular songs of 2011. The song was written and recorded by frontman Mark Foster while he was working as a commercial jingle writer. Contrasting with the upbeat musical composition, the lyrics describe the homicidal thoughts of a troubled youth named "Robert."
The track received considerable attention after it was posted online in 2010 as a free download, and it helped the group garner a multi-album record deal with Columbia Records imprint Startime International. "Pumped Up Kicks" proved to be a sleeper hit; in 2011, after receiving significant airplay on modern rock stations, the song crossed-over onto contemporary hit radio stations. The song spent eight consecutive weeks at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, making it the first Billboard Alternative Songs number-one single to crack the U.S. top 5 since Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody" in 2009. The song was widely praised by critics, and it has been licensed for use in a wide range of popular media since its release. "Pumped Up Kicks" also received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. The song remains the band's most successful hit single to date.
Writing and recording
Soon after Mark Foster formed Foster the People in 2009, he wrote and recorded "Pumped Up Kicks" in five hours while working as a commercial jingle writer at Mophonics in Los Angeles. On the day of recording, Foster debated between songwriting in the studio and going to the beach. He explained: "I really didn't have anything to do that day. I was standing there in the studio, and this thought came in my mind like, 'I'm going to write a song,'... and then I was like, 'I don't feel like writing. I don't want to write a song.' I was a block away from the beach, and it was a beautiful day. I kind of just wanted to just be lazy and go hang out at the beach or whatever. But I just forced myself to write a song... By that time the next day, the song was finished."Reflecting on the lack of inspiration he felt when writing the song, Foster said, "I've heard a lot of other artists talk about this as well, like, 'I'm not inspired right now. I've got writer's block. I'm just not really feeling anything.' And I've felt that way, too, just not being inspired and wanting to wait for inspiration to come before I wrote. But I wasn't inspired when I wrote 'Pumped Up Kicks,' and that's what came out. So... it just solidified the notion that persistence is more powerful than inspiration." Thinking that he was just recording a demo, he played all of the instruments on the song, and using the software Logic Pro, he arranged and edited the song himself. The demo is ultimately the version of the song that Foster released.
Composition and inspiration
The lyrics to "Pumped Up Kicks" are written from the perspective of a troubled and delusional youth with homicidal thoughts. The lines in the chorus warn potential victims to "outrun my gun" and that they "better run, better run, faster than my bullet." Foster said to CNN Entertainment, "I wrote 'Pumped Up Kicks' when I began to read about the growing trend in teenage mental illness. I wanted to understand the psychology behind it because it was foreign to me. It was terrifying how mental illness among youth had skyrocketed in the last decade. I was scared to see where the pattern was headed if we didn't start changing the way we were bringing up the next generation." In writing the song, Foster wanted to "get inside the head of an isolated, psychotic kid" and "bring awareness" to the issue of gun violence among youth, which he feels is an epidemic perpetuated by "lack of family, lack of love, and isolation." The title refers to the expensive Reebok Pumps that his classmates wore, in addition to "kicks" being an American slang word for shoes.The issue of youth violence is a matter close to the group. Foster was bullied in high school, while bassist Cubbie Fink has a cousin who survived the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. Fink said of his cousin's experience, "She was actually in the library when everything went down, so I actually flew out to be with her the day after it happened and experienced the trauma surrounding it and saw how affected she was by it. She is as close as a sister, so obviously, it affected me deeply. So to be able to have a song to create a platform to talk about this stuff has been good for us."
Contrasting with the dark lyrics of the song, the music, which was written first, is upbeat. Foster said, "It's a 'fuck you' song to the hipsters in a way—but it's a song the hipsters are going to want to dance to." Jeffery Berg of Frontier Psychiatrist said, "I was so engrossed with the cheery melody of its chorus that it took me a few listens to discover that the lyrics suggest dark, Columbine revenge."
Due to the opening lyrics, "Robert's got a quick hand", many have speculated that the song is a reference to Robert Hawkins, perpetrator of Omaha's Westroads Mall shooting. The band's publicist denied any connection: "This is completely false. The character name in the song is just a coincidence." For play on the television channels MTV and MTVu, the words "gun" and "bullet" were removed from the song's chorus. Many have written letters to Foster's record label and called radio stations to complain that the song was glorifying school shootings. He explained, "The song is not about condoning violence at all. It's the complete opposite. The song is an amazing platform to have a conversation with your kids about something that shouldn't be ignored, to talk about it in a loving way."
Release and promotion
Initial attention
"Pumped Up Kicks" drew considerable attention online after Foster posted the song on his website as a free download in early 2010; Nylon magazine used the track in an online advertising campaign, and through various blogs, it went viral. Foster the People first performed the song live at the Stand Up Charity Benefit in Venice in February. The group, yet to be signed, garnered buzz with performances at the South by Southwest music festival in March. Foster was e-mailed by many people about the song, and needing professional guidance, he contacted artist manager Brent Kredel at Monotone, Inc., saying, "Everyone is calling me and e-mailing me—what do I do? Who are the good guys, who are the bad guys?" Kredel recalled that "He went from the guy who couldn't get a hold of anyone to being the guy who had hundreds of e-mails in his inbox." Kredel and Brett Williams were subsequently hired to co-manage Foster the People, and they helped the group get a multi-album record deal with Columbia Records imprint Startime International in May 2010. Wishing to release a record that would back up the song's success, the group wrote new material between July–September 2010."Pumped Up Kicks" was licensed for use in a July 2010 episode of the TV series Entourage, the first of many instances in which Foster the People's music was licensed in popular media. The song received its first widespread radio play that month on Sirius XM's Alt Nation channel and the Australian radio station Triple J. In November, the University of Maryland's radio station WMUC played the song, marking its debut on US terrestrial radio. The song placed at number 32 in the Triple J's Hottest 100 for 2010, a notable achievement due to the band being relatively unknown in Australia. Still, the group was inexperienced as a live act, and as a result, their booking agent Tom Windish secured them several club shows "to help them get their sea legs." Foster the People promoted these concerts in January 2011 by emailing fans who had downloaded "Pumped Up Kicks" from their website, notifying them of the shows. The group continued to grow its fanbase with a month-long residency of concerts in January at The Echo nightclub in Los Angeles. By the group's third show at the venue, according to Windish, "there were hundreds of people trying to get in outside... It was an obvious turning point that could be measured in numbers."
Commercial breakthrough
In January 2011, the band issued their first commercial non-single release, a self-titled EP on which "Pumped Up Kicks" appeared. Around the same time, many alternative radio stations began playing "Pumped Up Kicks", including Los Angeles terrestrial stations KROQ-FM and KYSR, and it continued to gain popularity on Alt Nation. Mark Foster credits Sirius XM's airplay with the song's success, saying, "Alt Nation played our music before any other radio outlet in the country." On January 29, the song debuted on Billboards Rock Songs chart and a week later, it debuted on the Alternative Songs chart. In May, the track debuted at number 96 on the Billboard Hot 100, and later that month, the group released their first full-length studio album, Torches, on which "Pumped Up Kicks" appears. On May 23, 2011, BBC Radio 1 DJ Greg James selected the song as his Record of the Week, which ran until May 27. During this time, James released an accompanying video of him dancing to the song which he entitled and promoted "The Bum Dance".The song proved to be a crossover hit; after peaking at number one on the Alternative Songs chart in June and number three on the Rock Songs chart in July, the song broke into the top 40 of the Hot 100 in late July and appeared on the Adult Top 40 and Mainstream Top 40 charts. Columbia senior VP of promotion Lee Leipsner said, "It was one of the only alternative bands I remember in a while that you could actually dance to. And the fact that the record has a groove and rhythmic feel to it—not heavy guitar-based at all—gave us a wide opportunity to cross the record." He credits the song's crossover success and push into the top 40 to a June presentation of new music by Clear Channel president of national programming platforms Tom Poleman. According to Leipsner, "After we showed our presentation, we had so many Clear Channel major-market programmers come up to us and say, 'The record I want to play besides Adele is Foster the People.'" "Pumped Up Kicks" peaked at number three on the Hot 100, spending eight consecutive weeks at the position, seven of them stuck behind Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger" and Adele's "Someone like You" occupying the two spots above. It has been certified 5× platinum in Canada and Australia, 14× platinum in the United States, and gold in Germany. The song ranked as the sixth-best-selling digital song of 2011 in the United States with 3.84 million copies sold, while it ranked as music streaming service Spotify's most streamed song of the year. The song has sold 5,173,000 copies in the United States as of 2013