1234 (song)
Encyclopedia
"1234" is a song from Feist's third studio album, The Reminder
The Reminder
The Reminder is the third full-length album by indie artist Feist. It was released on April 23, 2007 in countries outside of North America, and May 1, 2007 in the United States and Canada....

. It is Feist's most successful single to date. The song was co-written by Sally Seltmann, an Australian singer-songwriter who also recorded under the name New Buffalo, and Feist. It remains Feist's biggest hit single in the USA to date, and her only song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 and UK Top 40
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

.

History

In an interview with Songfacts, Seltmann said:
On 14 December 2005, Feist played the song live at The Trabendo in Paris, France in a show broadcast on Europe2 TV, with the title Sally's Song and with somewhat different lyrics than in the commercially released version.



Awards

"1234" was nominated for Grammy Awards in the categories of Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Short Form Music Video. Likewise, the success of the song largely contributed to Feist's other nominations that year for Best New Artist and Best Pop Vocal Album. It also won the Juno award
Juno Awards of 2008
The Juno Awards of 2008 were held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on the weekend ending 6 April 2008. These ceremonies honoured music industry achievements in Canada in the latter part of 2006 and in most of 2007....

 for Single of the Year
Juno Award for Single of the Year
The Juno Award for Single of the Year has been awarded since 1974 for the best single in Canada. It has also been known as Best Single and Best Selling Single.-Best Single :...

 on 6 April 2008 in Calgary.

This song was #19 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007, and #9 on the list of Readers' 25 Best Songs of 2007. It was also ranked #5 on Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

's Best Songs of 2007. Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...

deemed the video the fifth best video of the decade, and named the song #16 on top 100 tracks of 2007. Blender
Blender (magazine)
Blender was an American music magazine that billed itself as "the ultimate guide to music and more". It was also known for sometimes steamy pictorials of celebrities....

named the video #2 on The Top 10 Music Videos of 2007.

Release

The song was digitally released through iTunes Music Store. It became famous after its use in an iPod nano
IPod nano
iPod Nano is a digital media player designed and marketed by Apple Inc.. The first generation of iPod Nano was introduced on September 7, 2005 as a replacement for iPod Mini. It uses flash memory for storage. iPod Nano has gone through six models, or generations, since its introduction...

 commercial. It also appeared in an Australian commercial for eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...

. It has been released in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and in other countries digitally. It has recently been used in the trailer for the 2009 film New York, I Love You
New York, I Love You
New York, I Love You is a 2009 romance film released in the United States on October 16, 2009. From the producer of Paris, je t'aime, it stars an ensemble cast, among them Bradley Cooper, Shia LaBeouf, Natalie Portman, Anton Yelchin, Hayden Christensen, Orlando Bloom, Irrfan Khan, Rachel Bilson,...

.

Chart success

Since its digital release, "1234" peaked at #2 at the US Hot Digital Songs. The single has also reached #8 in the US Hot 100, #10 at the US Pop 100
Pop 100
The Pop 100 was a songs chart that debuted in February 2005 and was released weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States until its discontinuation in 2009...

, and #34 at the US Modern Rock Tracks
Modern Rock Tracks
Alternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs...

 chart. As of July 25, 2011, "1234" had 1.2 million downloads in the US. The single's unexpected success led to its release worldwide. In the UK it proved to become a huge hit, making it in the top 10 peaking at #8. It had a very successful release in Canada making it at number 2. The song has also entered the top 10 in other European countries. The single's success has made Feist famous globally and it has boosted the remaining sales. It also managed to debut at number 67 on the Australian ARIA
ARIA Charts
The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...

 Singles Chart, as digital tracks were added from the 5th of November 2007 to the singles chart in Australia. It later entered the top 50 of the chart in late December, and has thus far peaked at #36.

It also ranked #34 in the Triple J Hottest 100
Triple J Hottest 100
The Triple J Hottest 100 is an annual music poll, based on the votes of national Australian radio station Triple J listeners, in order to determine their favourite song of the year. Voting is conducted by the internet and begins roughly two weeks prior to the new year for the previous year's songs...

, and #1 on Amazon.com's Top-selling Songs of 2007.

Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine named "1234" one of The 10 Best Songs of 2007, ranking it at #2 after "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse. Writer Josh Tyrangiel
Josh Tyrangiel
Josh Tyrangiel is a journalist, and editor of Bloomberg Businessweek. He joined the magazine following its acquisition by Bloomberg L.P. in December 2009. Prior to joining Bloomberg Businessweek, Tyrangiel was deputy managing editor of TIME magazine and managing editor of TIME.com...

 called the song a “masterpiece”, praising Feist for singing it “with a mixture of wisdom and exuberance that's all her own."

In the 28 April 2008 episode of The Colbert Report where she was a guest, Feist said that she had planned to offer "1234" as the official campaign theme for Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.Colbert originally studied to be an...

's Presidential bid
Stephen Colbert presidential campaign, 2008
On October 16, 2007, satirist Stephen Colbert officially announced that he would run for President of the United States. This came after weeks of being pressured to do so by the public and stating that he would need a sign, which came from Aragorn giving him the sword Anduril...

, before he dropped out.

Remixes and covers

The original version of the song was mixed by Renaud Letang. It was remixed by Van She Tech, consisting of several members of the band Van She
Van She
Van She is an electropop band formed in 2005 in Sydney, Australia, with Matt Van Schie on bass guitar/vocals, Tomek Archer on drums/sequencer, Michael Di Francesco on synth/guitar and Nicholas Routledge on vocals/guitar...

.
The song was also rewritten as a counting song for the 39th season of Sesame Street
Sesame Street
Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...

, in which Feist counts chickens, monsters, and penguins to 4.
Brooke White
Brooke White
Brooke Elizabeth White is an American indie pop/folk-pop singer-songwriter and actress from Mesa, Arizona who was the fifth place finalist on the seventh season of American Idol. In 2005, White released her first studio album, called Songs from the Attic.White's first post-Idol album High Hopes &...

 of American Idol
American Idol (season 7)
The seventh season of American Idol, the annual reality show and singing competition, began on January 15, 2008 and concluded on May 21, 2008. Ryan Seacrest continued to host the show with Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson returning as judges...

fame performed a cover of "1234" in her set on the American Idols LIVE! Tour 2008
American Idols LIVE! Tour 2008
American Idols LIVE! Tour 2008 was a summer concert tour in the United States and Canada that featured the top 10 contestants of the seventh season of American Idol, which aired in 2008. This tour followed in the tradition of other American Idol summer tours following the completion of the season...

, which ran from 1 July to 13 September.

It was parodied by MADtv
MADtv
MADtv is an American sketch comedy television series. It licensed the name and logo of Mad, but otherwise had no connection with the humor magazine outside the animated Spy vs. Spy and Don Martin cartoon shorts and images of Alfred E. Neuman that the show featured during the late 1990s. Its first...

 for the continuous releases of new iPods, a commercial in which the song was originally used.

It was sung by the character of Andy Bernard in "Lecture Circuit
Lecture Circuit
"Lecture Circuit" is a two-part episode of the American comedy television series The Office. They constituted the sixteenth and seventeenth episodes of the fifth season, and the 88th and 89th overall episodes of the series...

", an episode of The Office
The Office (US TV series)
The Office is an American comedy television series broadcast by NBC. An adaptation of the original BBC series of the same name, it depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company...

, in an attempt to woo a client he finds attractive. This attempt fails, and Dunder Mifflin loses the account.

Electropop band Joy Electric
Joy Electric
Joy Electric is the brand label for a series of electropop/synth pop productions by Ronnie Martin. Martin began producing music under the Joy Electric name in 1994, after the demise of Dance House Children, a band Ronnie was in with his brother Jason Martin of Starflyer 59. Starflyer 59 bass player...

 released a cover of the song in 2009 on their album Favorites at Play
Favorites at Play
Favorites at Play is an album by Joy Electric. The album consists solely of covers of songs from nine different artists. It is the first such album from Joy Electric.-Track listing:In parenthesis is the artist who originally performed the song....

.

Singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins
Kenny Loggins
During the next decade, Loggins recorded so many successful songs for film soundtracks that he was referred to as, King of the Movie Soundtrack.He began with "I'm Alright" , "Mr. Night", and "Lead the Way" from Caddyshack...

 remade the song for his 2009 album All Join In
All Join In
All Join In is the thirteenth studio album and third childrens album by Kenny Loggins.The first Kenny Loggins childrens album to be released by Walt Disney Records in 2009.His previous childrens albums Return to Pooh Corner was released by Columbia Records/Sony Wonder and More Songs From Pooh...

. The lyrics were changed because of "dark" subject material and the song also featured Kenny's 11-year old daughter Hana.

Pianist Louis Durra
Louis Durra
Louis Durra is an American jazz pianist and composer living in Los Angeles. His biological father was saxophonist Trevor Koehler.-as leader:* The Best Of All Possible Worlds -- CD, 2011* Mad World EP -- CD, 2011...

, recorded an instrumental trio version released on "Mad World EP" and "Arrogant Doormats" (2011).

Charts

Chart Peak
Position
Australian ARIA
ARIA Charts
The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...

 Singles Chart
36
Canadian Hot 100
Canadian Hot 100
The Canadian Hot 100 is a music singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine which ranks songs in Canada. The chart debuted in the Billboard issue dated June 16, 2007 and was made available for the first time via their online services on June 7, 2007...

3
Dutch Singles Charts 97
European Hot 100 Singles 20
Germany Singles Chart
Media Control Charts
The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie...

75
Swiss Singles Charts 63
UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

8
U.S. Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

8
U.S. Billboard Pop 100
Pop 100
The Pop 100 was a songs chart that debuted in February 2005 and was released weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States until its discontinuation in 2009...

10
U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks
Modern Rock Tracks
Alternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs...

34
U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks
Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks
The Adult Contemporary chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States...

30

Awards and nominations

  • 2008 - Grammy Awards, nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Short Form Music Video
  • 2008 - Juno Award
    Juno Award
    The Juno Awards are presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music...

    , won Single of the Year
  • 2008 - The Average Lives of Students Music Awards, won Alternative Song of the Year, nominated for Song of the Year


Sally Seltmann has received a nomination for 2008 APRA's (Australian Performing Right Association) peer nominated, Song Of The Year Award.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK