Songfacts®:

• "Turn It Up" is a bubbly little song about that intoxicating feeling of connecting with someone in a club. PinkPantheress sings of that heady feeling of infatuation and the awkwardness of trying to figure out if the other person feels the same way.
• There's a hint that PinkPantheress might be singing about another girl.
  
  You remember our favorite song was playing
  And every word that came out your mouth was wrong
  Oh Maria, Maria
  Tell me why you're always here at night?
  
  It could be a genuine question about why this "Maria" keeps showing up at the club, or maybe she's playfully teasing her love interest for messing up the lyrics to Santana's "Maria Maria."
• The "Turn It Up" vocal sample comes from the intro of "Genie" by K-pop group Girls Generation. PinkPantheress has previously talked about her love for K-Pop and used their songs in her music. For example, on "Nice To Meet You," her collaboration with Central Cee, she interpolates "Sleep Talk," a track off South Korean singer/rapper Zion.T's EP ZZZ. PinkPantheress also sang on the remix of "Rush" by Troye Sivan alongside Hyunjin from Stray Kids.
• The title "Turn It Up" could mean a few things. It could be the DJ cranking up the music, setting the scene for the encounter, or it could be a call to PinkPantheress' love interest to be more open and expressive. Ultimately, it reflects the heightened emotions and desire for deeper engagement that come with a blossoming connection.
• The song incorporates a chopped-up sample of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez' 1995 track "Dreaming of You." The Queen of Tejano is rarely sampled in modern pop, but here PinkPantheress speeds up the opening chords of "Dreaming of You," giving them a lo-fi feel.
  
  While "Turn It Up" is about the initial spark of connection and a blossoming infatuation, Selena's song is about the intense longing and desire for someone special.
• PinkPantheress is known for her short and sweet songs, but "Turn It Up" is a bit of a departure. It's still only two and a half minutes, but it feels like a more developed story than her usual one-verse wonders.
  
  "A song doesn't need to be longer than two minutes 30 in my opinion," she told ABC News. "We don't need to repeat a verse, we don't need to have a bridge, we don't need it. We don't need a long outro."
• "Turn It Up" first appeared as a snippet on PinkPantheress' TikTok, and after fans clamored for its release, it finally dropped on streaming platforms on May 24. 2024.