Perfect Nightmare

Album: No Gravity (2010)
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Songfacts®:

  • This Rodney 'Darkchild' Jerkins-produced song is the second single by R&B singer-songwriter Shontelle from her sophomore studio album, No Gravity. Darkchild has also worked with a number of other leading artists including Britney Spears, The Pussycat Dolls and Beyoncé.
  • The single was sent to US radio on August 31, 2010. Originally, "No Gravity" and "Say Hello to Goodbye" were tipped to be the album's second single but both possible releases were scrapped in favor of this tune.
  • This song about a love/hate relationship that Shontelle can't seem to break off, could be seen as the female equivalent of Ne-Yo's "Beautiful Monster."
  • Colin Tilley directed the song's music video in Los Angeles. Shontelle explained its concept to Sound Savvy: "It is just really a story between me and this boyfriend I have. He is like a super champion boxer. He's a Muay Thai fighter. He's really, really hot so ladies prepare yourself for a lot of eye candy. But anyways, so my Muay-Thai fighter, superstar boyfriend…I notice I like superstar boyfriends. First I had a producer boyfriend, now I have a superstar athlete.

    Anyways, so he starts cheating on me. It's like at first he's really good to me. He's really a good boyfriend to me. He really is. Not in the case of 'Impossible' where the boyfriend is bad. He's actually really good but he cheats. He does everything right. He's the best: attentive, he makes me feel loved, gives me all the attention I need, anything I need. But then when he's at work he has this other girlfriend that's always in the gym, but I actually know about it and I'm putting up with this stuff. And that's literally…the video tells the story of the song which is basically I'm living the perfect nightmare. I'm living this life that's actually quite tragic where I have no right allowing someone to do this to me, but I'm so in love because of the way he makes me feel and so that's why I'm like "when will I wake up and scream no way". This is a nightmare. Something bad is happening to me but I'm enjoying it. That's really how the video literally tells a story. In the video I'm just going to say, since it's not out yet, he learns his lessons. And I pretty much do wake up from the perfect nightmare."

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