Hello

Album: Hello (2012)
Charted: 62
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the title track and second single from Karmin's debut EP, Hello. It was written by duo (Amy Heidemann and Nick Noonan), along with Norwegian production team Stargate, New York singer-songwriter Autumn Rowe (who has also penned tunes for Leona Lewis and Cher Lloyd), plus Claude Kelly, who previously collaborated with the pair on their breakthrough hit "Brokenhearted."

    Amy and Nick could handle just about every aspect of the songwriting, performance and production themselves, which they proved on their YouTube cover songs that earned them a record deal. But when they signed with Epic, the label teamed them with some established hitmakers to give them an edge. It got them on the charts, but soured them on the process: Karmin left the label in 2015 and went at it on their own. In 2017, they dissolved Karmin and emerged as Qveen Herby, Amy's tight-rapping alter ego.
  • The song is about the Karmin duo's rise to fame and the people who doubted them along the way. "We wanted to kind of hold on to this one until the world had a better idea of who we were, and I think 'Brokenhearted' really helped establish us as artists," Heidemann told MTV News. "This one gets a little darker, the sound is darker, there's more rap in it, it's a little more aggressive."
  • The music video was shot in Los Angeles in June 2012. "It's mostly performance-based and we do it in Chinatown in L.A., that's where it was filmed," Noonan told MTV News. "It's very cool ambiance, a lot of cool visuals and it's kind of like our coming-out party. 'Brokenhearted' was obviously very successful for us, went platinum last month or two ago, so there is kind of like, 'Hey, we're Karmin, nice to meet you.' That's the idea."
  • Karmin are children of the '90s: you can hear the Nirvana influence on this track as they interpolate the "hello, hello, hello, hello" refrain from Nirvana's classic "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

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