Dirty Picture

Album: Rokkstar (2009)
Charted: 6 96
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Songfacts®:

  • On this Electro-Pop club track English singer-songwriter and music producer Taio Cruz sings about texting dirty pictures. It is the fourth single from Cruz's sophomore album, Rokkstar.
  • The song features vocals from Kesha. A Part II was also recorded by the pair, which serves as a UK bonus track for the American singer-songwriter's debut album Animal.
  • Cruz told MTV News: "The song is actually about sending sexy pictures to your significant other. If you miss each other and you can't see each other, you're far away from each other, you send pictures to remind each other of how sexy you are."
  • Cruz told MTV News that the then-little-known Kesha wasn't his original choice to collaborate on this song, but she seemed to be the best fit. "I was thinking about Lady Gaga at first," he said. "Then I went to a meeting with Dr. Luke and he was telling me about this new girl he was working with. She hadn't done 'TiK ToK' or anything like that at that point. But I just thought she sounded really cool. A very unique-sounding voice. I like that with artists, that as soon as you hear them on a song on the radio, you know immediately who that is without having to be told. She looked really sexy, and I just thought she was talented. Her voice was awesome. It had this - I hope she won't mind me saying this, but her voice has this kind of yodely quality to it, the way that she does things and the way that she ends words. I just loved that quality about it."
  • Cruz told Blues and Soul magazine how he created this song: "Funnily enough, it's like it kinda came outta nowhere really. I basically just wanted to create a song that had a fun, electro-sounding beat. So I started producing a track with Fraser T. Smith, and it came out with this really cool, dirty bass-line. So I started saying 'dirty'… And, as I was mumbling this line - like I do when I'm trying to write a song - the words 'dirty picture' just CAME to me! So, because I thought that was kind of a cool topic, I just started writing the song AROUND it. And that's how 'Dirty Picture' came into existence."
  • This risqué song was cleaned up for US radio with the new title of "Take a Picture."

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