The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)
The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)", is an electronic dance song and viral video byNorwegian comedy duo Ylvis. The video was posted on YouTube on September 3, 2013 and has over 213 million views as of November 11, 2013.[2] "The Fox" has so far had its peak at number 6 for three consecutive weeks on the Billboard Hot 100,[3][4] and is also the highest-ranked song by a Norwegian artist on the chart since a-ha's number-one song "Take on Me" in 1985.
The song was released as a single on iTunes in Norway on September 2, 2013[5] and it was planned to be released on iTunes in the United States on September 9.[6] However, it remained unavailable for one week due to allegations of copyright infringement by a third party.[7] It became available on the U.S. iTunes on September 16[8] and has peaked at number 5 on the Top Songs chart from October 11 to October 12, 2013.[9] There are currently no plans to release an album including the song or any sequel to it.[6][10]
Contents
[hide]Production
The brothers Vegard and Bård Ylvisåker, members of the Norwegian comedy group Ylvis, produced the song and music video "The Fox" to promote the upcoming third season of their television talk show I kveld med YLVIS (Tonight with YLVIS) on TVNorge. In an interview with Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, the brothers stated that the idea about a song about a fox was originally conceived in 2012, but then shelved. Half a year later, in 2013, Bård and lyricist Christian Løchstøer began to play with the idea once again. Vegard was initially skeptical about making a song about a fox, but soon relented.[11] In an interview on the Norwegian-Swedish talk show Skavlan, the brothers mentioned that given the opportunity to collaborate with Stargate, they originally wanted to make a dance songabout men who cannot dance or dread dancing and named it "The Dancing Stick", but felt that the idea was "too clever" and they would appear to try to make a hit. The idea was therefore scrapped and "The Fox" got released instead.[12]
Bård described the writing process for "The Fox" in an interview with Billboard in the United States: "The way we work is we just sit around and talk about things and get ideas and take some notes. I guess we must have been talking about what sound a fox makes. And then we had a chance to work with Stargate, a production company in New York City... We actually did a favor for them and we asked them if they could produce a song for the new season in exchange".[6] Tor Erik Hermansen of Stargate recalled in an interview with Spin that the favor was actually a mockumentary done by the Ylvisåker brothers to celebrate Mikkel Storleer Eriksen's 40th birthday, in which they pretended to be the Stargate duo.[13] Australian producer M4SONIC was also involved in the production.[14]
Bård, being interviewed by Entertainment Weekly, talked about their intention of making "The Fox":
“As comedians, it wouldn’t be a good thing if we went to pursue a hit in the States because they could potentially make something that became big, so we thought it would be more fun from a comedian perspective to come home to the talk show and say, ‘Listen we had the chance, we could’ve made it big, but the only idea we got for the song was this old idea about what the fox says so we’re sorry. We screwed up.’ That was the plan... That would’ve been funny to say on the talk show."[15]
M4SONIC described producing "The Fox":
“I was over in the US with a production duo called Stargate working with Sia and Nadia Ali. One of the beats that I made we kinda put to one side as it wasn’t really going anywhere. I’d totally forgotten about the track until I stumbled across The Fox video on YouTube. It turned out that Tor and Mikkel (Stargate), who are Norwegian, are friends with Bård and Vegard Ylvisåker (Ylvis). Stargate gave Ylvis a copy of the beat that we made to use for a video they were doing to launch their comedy show in Norway. I think the whole thing kinda ‘snowballed’ and was an accident on their side as well. No one really thought it would be a top 10 Billboard track!"[16]
Analysis
In our show last season, we went toKyrgyzstan in Central Asia and tried to become pop stars there. The idea was that we'd never become pop stars in the U.S. or England, so we chose another country where it would be easier. We did all kinds of stupid things: performed at weddings. The whole humor is that we didn't succeed and had lots of obstacles. The obstacles generated the comedy. Then suddenly we're on this trip to America, the place people want to go, and there's no obstacles. Every doorway is open... and there's no comedy.
“
”
Tris McCall of The Star-Ledger describes "The Fox" as "a parody of the excesses and absurdities of contemporary club music": the brothers "take turns singing preposterous lyrics about animal noises" over "typically vainglorious synthpop," with the proposed fox sounds "mimic[king] the car-alarm synthesizers of contemporary dubstep." He compares it to Ylvis' "Someone Like Me," which mocked the insertion of dubstep breaks into pop songs.[18] Danielle Seamon of The Lantern acknowledges that while some may be "extremely perplexed by the attention stupidity and bizarreness collects in 2013" displayed by the song, it is in fact "meant to be a funny and almost satirical to pop music", and Ylvis has "pushed everybody’s buttons by breaking and manipulating every rule of a Top 40 pop song."[19]
Caitlin Carter of online music site "Music Times" echoes the comments above, adding that "The Fox" becoming the first song to get serious recognition "makes [the staff at Music Times] wonder", as the duo's other songs and videos prior to the release of "The Fox" "are just about as random and melodramatic", such as "from contemplating the meaning of Stonehenge" ('Stonehenge'), to scientifically examining the inner-workings of the female reproductive organ ('Work It'), to honoring a United Nations Human Rightshero ('Jan Egeland')."[20] Jonathan Ore of CBC News, although calling "The Fox" a "catchy tune [...] paired with the most absurd lyrics this side of the theme song to DuckTales", also gives the comedy duo credit for "the arguably better" "Stonehenge".[21]
Speaking of the meaning of the song, Vegard characterizes it as coming from "a genuine wonder of what the fox says, because we didn’t know."[22] Bård, however, called the song "a stupid thing" and that "even though people find it interesting, it's still a stupid fox song, and when people start to get over this, it gets even worse, because it is so stupid."[10]
Although interpreted by some commentators as a reference to the furry fandom,[23] the duo have stated they did not know about its existence when producing "The Fox."[24]
Music video and composition
The video was released on September 3, 2013. It is performed in the style of a typicalelectronic dance pop song, and the lyrics are sung "with deadpan seriousness."[25] The video was originally created to promote the brand-new season of Ylvis' talk show I kveld med YLVIS on TVNorge but was released on TVNorge's YouTube channel and went viral. The video was directed by Ole Martin Hafsmo with cinematography by Magnus Flåto. The choreography was done by Thea Bay. The forest scenes were filmed in Nittedal municipality, 22 kilometers from Oslo downtown.[26]
The video begins with Bård singing at a costume party where other participants are dressed as different animals, whose appearances follow the progression of the lyrics. He gives a summary of animal sounds ("Dog goes woof/cat goes meow", etc.) that "could have been lifted straight from a pre-school primer" and asks "what does the fox say?"[18] The group then transitions into a synchronized dance scene in a forest with Bård in a bear costume and Vegard a squirrel costume (as they failed to find any fox costume in the Norwegian Film Institute the day before filming), complete with face-paint and giant, bushy tails.[27]
During each chorus, the song offers several increasingly absurd possibilities for the fox's sound such as "gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!" and in the second chorus where Vegard sings "fraka-kaka-kaka-kaka-kow!"[14][28] Among the dancers, an elderly man is shown reading the lyrics from a book to a boy sitting on his lap. The song then describes the fox and the singer's admiration for it, and asks whether it would communicate with a horse using morse code. In the end, the singers float in the air and a computer-animated fox stands and scat sings (voiced by Vegard) while Bård finishes the song with falsetto.[29] With the chord progression of C#m—B—F#, the song is written in the key of C#minor.[30]
Reception and response
In the U.S., "The Fox" debuted on September 12, 2013 on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 29, and at number 3 on the Streaming Songs chart.[31] It later reached the top spot on the Streaming Songs chart for the weeks ending October 19 and November 2.[32][33]The song in the following week has also broken into the Hot Digital Songs top 10 at number 8 with 108,000 downloads during the week and debuted on the On-Demand Songs chart, when it sits in the top 10 of Hot 100 for the third week.[4] The music video's viral success and catchiness has also drawn comparison to that of PSY's "Gangnam Style".[34][35] It took 35 days to hit 100 million views, compared to 51 days by "Gangnam Style" to reach the mark.[36]
Ylvis were signed on by Warner Music: Vegard has stated that the "record deal was landed way before 'Fox' — in the spring sometime."[10] Their first live performance in the United States was on September 20, 2013 at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas.[22] They also appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on September 20, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on October 9 and The Today Show on October 11.[37][38][39] After their appearance at the 2013 MTV Europe Music Awards in Amsterdam, Netherlands on November 10, they are scheduled to perform on the annual fundraising telethon Children in Need on November 15, which will be their first performance in the United Kingdom; later at the Mnet Asian Music Awards ("MAMA") at Hong Kong AsiaWorld-Expo on November 22, the biggest music festival in Asia.[40][41][42][43]
Ylvis were surprised by the international success of the song, intending only to target their Norwegian audience.[6] Bård said he was "quite surprised" and that it was "supposed to entertain a few Norwegians for three minutes — and that's all."[14] Vegard described it as "definitely very shocking."[24]
Like many viral music videos, "The Fox" has become an Internet meme and has been extensively covered and adapted by others, with some of the most prominent including a cover by The Ohio University Marching 110 who had previously covered "Gangnam Style" and LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem";[44] a cover by Tay Zonday of "Chocolate Rain" fame;[45] an acoustic guitar cover of the first verse byTyler Ward;[46] an adaptation based on the popular video game League of Legends entitled "What Does Teemo Say?";[47] an advertisement for the Fox Network featuring clips of FOX programs and actors singing the song;[48] and an adaptation by Annoying Orange entitled "The Sock."[49] The video was also featured twice by the Fine Brothers on their popular series Elders React and Teens React, which show reactions of elderly people and teens to YouTube videos, respectively.[50][51] On October 28, four contestants on theseventeenth season of Dancing with the Stars performed the song for the "Team Dance" week under the team name "Foxing Awesome", scoring a perfect 30.[52] NBC's Saturday Night Live cast-member Jay Pharoah and host Kerry Washington appeared in a parody video of the song titled "My Girl" on November 2, 2013, featuring a boyfriend got caught by his girlfriend for sexting with other girls.[53][54]
Due to the popularity of the song, TMZ reported on October 18, 2013 that two weeks away from Halloween, the sales of fox costumes had already risen by almost 40% at one costume outlet from last Halloween, according to the data from Spirit Halloween,BuyCostumes and Amazon.[55] The song has also been synchronized with a "singing Halloween house" by the neighborhood in Edwards Landing, Leesburg, Virginia, who every Halloween creates an LED light show with a hit song.[56] Ylvis has signed a deal withSimon & Schuster to publish a children's book based on the song to be released before the end of 2013.[57]
