main page Celebrating 5 Years Of Hold It Against Me - With Interesting Facts

News · January 11, 2016

â€˜Hold It Against Meâ€™, the first single off the Britneyâ€™s seventh studio album, â€˜Femme Fataleâ€™ was released a whopping 5 years ago today.

The song features production credits from fan fave Max Martin and Dr Luke who is responsible for massive hits from Ke$ha and Katy Perry. The line â€˜If I said I want your body now, would you hold it against me?â€™ was used in a slightly different form in the Bellamy Brothersâ€™ 1979 hit, â€˜If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against meâ€™. The brothers expressed their annoyance with the similarities to their â€˜signatureâ€™ line. David Bellamy stated, â€˜If you listen to the lyrics of Britney Spearsâ€™ single you will find some major similaritiesâ€¦ Sheâ€™s a talented gal, but professionally, well, in all honesty, we feel completely ripped off. Whereâ€™s the origionality.â€™ His brother Howard simply stated, â€˜Hey Brit, If I said you ripped off our song, would you hold it against me?â€™

However, the line is hardly a Bellamy original, which makes this whole scenario pretty funny. Howard himself stated in a 2007 interview that he got his line from Goucho Marx, who used to say it to women on his game show, â€˜You Bet Your Lifeâ€™ in the 1950â€™s.

On the first day of its release, the song garnered the highest ever number of US radio plays in a single day registering 619 plays on mediabase and 595 plays on Nielson BDS.

The song sold 411,000 downloads in itâ€™s first week available for purchase in the US, breaking the record for the best debut sales week for a digital song by a female artist. Prior to Britney, was Taylor Swiftâ€™s, â€˜Today was a fairytaleâ€™ with 325,000 downloads. Britneyâ€™s reign only lasted a month, as she was later beaten by Lady Gagaâ€™s, â€˜Born This Wayâ€™ with 448,000 first week sales.

â€˜Hold It Against meâ€™ was simultaneously released on radio worldwide and debuted at number 1 in 20 countries worldwide. When the song took the top spot in the US charts, Brit became the second artist to debut multiple songs at number 1 on the Billboard Top 100. (3 debuted at number 1 in 2009). The only other act to achieve multiple number 1â€™s prior to this point was Mariah Carey.

The video was directed by Jonas Akerlund (â€˜Ray Of Light and Telephone director) and his wife B Akerlund was the stylist for the video. The video features a lot of product placements and it is rumoured that Britney netted $500,000 for it.

The song was penned by Bonnie McKee, who claims the song was inspired by Katy Perry. She explains: â€˜Hold It Against Me was a happy accident. It was actually inspired by Katy because I was writing for her at the time and I went in the other room where I was working with Britney in between. She came into the room in some tight sexy little dress and I jokingly said, â€˜Damn Katy, If IÂ told you, you had a nice body, would you hold it against me?â€™ I was like Bingo! And I wrote the song.'

McKee added that she never got to meet Britney when working on Femme Fatale. She said: â€˜Which is funny as I am singing a lot in it. But she knows who I am and she has been really sweet about praising me. Britney is just all sex, all day. Itâ€™s like, how many sexual innuendos can I come up with?â€™

Britney freaked out when she saw the original choreography to HIAM, so apparently it had to be changed. Brian Freedman, Britneyâ€™s long term choreographer (a fan fave) was in charge of the routine. In the audition, the dancers needed to learn a dance to Robynâ€™s â€˜Criminal Intentâ€™ - to avoid any leaks.

Britney came up with idea for the Brit vs Brit fight!

The hooded dancers were compared to the Graeae, the three sisters who shared a single eye in the Greek Mythology.

Parts of the video were inspired by the 1975 classic, â€˜The Rocky Horror Picture Showâ€™. The multi-coloured letters are inspired by the Def-Leppard font.

There were 2 videos released â€“ one with and one without the product placement. See the comparisons between the 2 videos below:

The video is widely believed to symbolise Britneyâ€™s life and career from her rise to fame, to her troubled times to her return to the stage and in control.

Britney announced the video on Twitter on the 4^th February 2011 â€“ in a series of video snippets to create a hype over the release. James Montgomery (MTV) called the promotion â€˜brilliantâ€™ and said that it earned Britney â€˜a spot in promotional historyâ€™.