Album: Record Collection (2010)
Charted: 6
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the first single from English guitarist, music producer and artist Mark Ronson's, third studio album, Record Collection. The song features Q-Tip on rapping duties and singer Amanda Warner from the group MNDR on vocals.
  • The song had its broadcast debut on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show and was co-written with Nick Hodgson of Kaiser Chiefs. Ronson said of the track: "When we played all those festivals in 2007, we'd end up in the dance tent. And I got so jealous when Justice or Soulwax or Pendulum would go into their double-time breaks, and all the kids would start jumping up and down. And we never had that tempo in our set. So I just wanted that in one of our songs."
  • Did you know that Mark Ronson's stepfather is Mick Jones of the famous rock band Foreigner? Mark learned an old-school production style from his famous stepdad which served him well. Check out our interview with Mick Jones to find out more.
  • The song was built using a classic Eighties Duran Duran keyboard idea. MNDR then had the idea of merging it with a version of French nursery rhyme "Alouette."
  • Ronson told Spinner UK the original inspiration for this song came by chance. "Q-Tip came to the studio to record a rap and I accidentally played the first few bars of Bang Bang Bang while trying to find something else, and he said, 'What was that, those chords man, those are ill - let me do something on that'."
    Ronson added that he finds it difficult to know when to stop working on his tracks. "You're never really done with it," he explained. "There has to be a point where you sit on your hands and you're like, 'Alright I'm done, I'm not going to keep fiddling with this'. With Bang Bang Bang I kept changing it, really until the last minute."
  • Amanda Warner told Reuters that though she had never heard of Ronson before she met him, she believes his production style is so effective because of his mix of affability and precise musical vision. "He would send me an e-mail politely asking if Q-Tip could rap on our song," she said. "But he's also challenging in the studio, where there were many parts that he wanted me to re-sing. Mark knows exactly what he wants."
  • When Warner recorded her vocals for this song, she had to brace herself against the walls of a tiny recording booth as she couldn't stand up straight. She recalled in an interview with Spin magazine: "I had a rare case of vertigo that lasted four months. When Mark first met me, my pupils were dilated and I looked like I was out of my mind."

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