Songfacts®:

• This Eurodance party-popper was released as the second single from Usher's seventh studio album, Looking For Myself. Usher co-penned the song with Texan songwriter Savan Kotecha, whose other credits include One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful." Swedish hitmakers Max Martin and Shellback produced the track, which was premièred on the Internet on April 26, 2012.
• Lyrically, the song finds Usher between the sheets. "I try to be eloquent," he told The Guardian regarding writing about songs set in the bedroom. "I try to be intelligent in the way I approach speaking about sex."
• Usher performed both this song and "Climax" on the May 12, 2012 episode of Saturday Night Live. "We at it again 'SNL' and this time I'm gonna make you scream," he shouted to the audience before singing this tune.
• The music video was shot by directorial team BB GUN (Maxim Bohichik and Alex Bergman). The pair used footage of Usher performing the song at the Off-Broadway show Fuerza Bruta: Look Up in New York City's in Daryl Roth Theater.
  
  Usher told The Boombox why he decided to set the clip at the Fuerza Bruta show that he participated in during the spring of 2012. "Well, I felt everyone did not have the chance to have the Fuerza Bruta experience," he explained. "I felt like the energy of what 'Scream' was, was that. And I didn't want to make a 'Thriller' video. I didn't want to make a scary video. I didn't want to confuse people, because the word 'scream' can go any way. You can think Michael [Jackson], you can think Backstreet Boys. I thought, 'Let me give my perspective and try something creative that would tie things into what I've already done.'
  
  I shot footage of the performance at Fuerza Bruta and some of it was that," he continued, "and also shot some new footage to tie the story all together. I wanted it to feel a little bit more energetic. The energy was kind of displaced. It wasn't to be specific of the song lyrics. It was more so to kind of invoke this energy. That's why I decided to go that direction."