"Sour Candy" is a song by Lady Gaga from her sixth studio album, Chromatica. The song features South Korean girl group Blackpink. It was released on May 28, 2020, one day before the album release. The track was written by Gaga, Michael Tucker, Matthew Burns, Rami Yacoub and Madison Emiko Love, and produced by BloodPop® and Burns.
Background
In 2019 during an unrelated session with "Chromatica", Madison Love wrote the track with BloodPop, Rami and BURNS:
| “ | We started riffing on a chorus. We liked the title “Sour Candy." I thought we should write it like Sour Patch Kids in those commercialswhere they cut off people’s hair: They’re sour, then they’re sweet. That’s the wordplay I brought.... We wrote the chorus and I wrote a little verse for a [featured artist]. We were thinking BLACKPINK could be cool.... Blood brought it to Gaga and she was like, “I love this, I want to work on it.” She put her touch on it and transformed the song into her song. At the end she was like, “What about BLACKPINK on it?” | ” |
—Madison Love[1] | ||
When Love wrote the first version of “Sour Candy” with producer/writer BloodPop, no artist had dibs on the song yet. But in her heart, she knew it belonged to Lady Gaga. “I love to write theatrical pop,” Love says. “I decided to sing it like Gaga for the demo just in case he wanted to play it for her. But then, the song was dead. I didn’t think anyone was going to use it at all.” BloodPop called months later to say he was working on Chromatica. He told her Gaga wanted to enlist Blackpink to put her song out, after reworking it a bit. “I screamed,” says Love.
Gaga invited her to the studio to hear the song when it was done. “I walked in the room shaking,” Love admits, laughing at herself in retrospect. “I work with artists all the time and I don’t get nervous, but she’s just a star to me… She puts it on, and we’re dancing. She’s dancing on me and doing full choreo in the middle of the room. I was so overwhelmed. It was the coolest five minutes of my life.” On the drive home, she couldn’t tell her Uber driver what happened, but she wanted to. “I was basically crying on the phone,” she says, remembering the driver’s expression of bewilderment. “They were like, ‘What just happened to you?’ And I was all, ‘I can’t talk about it, but you would be screaming too.’” - Rolling Stone (2011)
Madison Love: At the end of the process, Gaga invited me to the studio to come listen to "Sour Candy." I met her and we started dancing. She had this whole choreographed dance she was doing for me. I was trying not to cry. It was one of those moments where I was like, "Oh my God I’m meeting her, and I helped co-write a song with her!".... I was kind of in awe when I heard it for the first time, because I hadn’t heard her full verse and how she ended it. I was more in shock when she first played it for me that I wasn’t even paying attention…. Afterward, they sent me a link and I listened to it in the car. [I remember thinking] "this is the Gaga that I love." (EW)
Gaga decided to collaborate on that song with BlackPink after solo "ready-to-release" version of the song was finished. After release of the Chromatica tracklisting many of Gaga's collaborators reposted it with a description saying what track they contributed in. One of those was Madison Love, who acknowledged that she co-wrote "Sour Candy".[2]
Performances
Release and promotion
The release of the song was announced by Gaga via her social media platforms a day before the release of Chromatica. The audio for the song uplaoded to Gaga's official VEVO account garnerned the biggest debut for an all-female collaboration in YouTube history. An animated lyric video directed by Sam Rolfes was released on June 16, 2020.
Spotify
Digital Release
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Label: Interscope, Streamline Format: Digital download, streaming Released: May 28, 2020 Photography: Norbert Schoerner Design: Studio Pending |
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| # | Name | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Sour Candy" (with Blackpink) | 02:37 |
Release history
| Country | Date | Format | Label | Catalog # | Barcode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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May 28, 2020 | Digital download • streaming | Interscope Streamline |
N/A | |
Lyrics
[Jennie]:
So-sour candy
(So-sour candy)
I'm sour candy, so sweet then I get a little angry, yeah
Sour candy, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
[Lisa]:
I'm super psycho, make it crazy when I turn the lights low
Sour candy, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
[Rose]:
Ask me to be nice and then I'll do it extra mean
Deopagaepyeojeoka, neoda wae ganaechi
[Jisoo]:
Isseo jeongae ramadulleo
Na pujanga, neo ya, neo ya
[Jennie]:
If you wanna fix me, then let's break up here and now
Geouikae meumneo nunchi gari jugikka?
[Jisoo]:
Judabomyeon neogimupsi, sorijilleowa
Uh-huh, uh-huh
[Lady Gaga]:
Oh, oh, oh, oh!
I'm hard on the outside but if you give me time
Then I could make time for your love
I'm hard on the outside but if you see inside, inside, inside
I might be messed up, but I know what's up
You want a real taste, at least I'm not a fake
Come, come unwrap me
Come, come unwrap me
I'll show you what's me
Close your eyes, don't peek
Now I'm undressin'
Unwrap sour candy
Come, come unwrap me
Come, come unwrap me
Come on, sour candy
Oh, oh, oh, oh!
I'm hard on the outside but if you give me time
Then I could make time for your love
I'm hard on the outside but if you see inside, inside, inside
[Rose]:
I'm sour candy, so sweet then I get a little angry, yeah
Sour candy, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
[Lisa]:
I'm super psycho, make it crazy when I turn the lights low
Sour candy, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
[Lady Gaga]:
Take a bite, take a bite
So-sour candy
Take a bite, take a bite
So-sour candy
Take a bite, take a bite
So-sour candy
Take a bite, take a bite
Sour candy
Lyric Video
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In the lyric video five fairy-like creatures can be seen dancing and floating in the air on, – what seems like, – the planet Chromatica. Each of these creatures represent a specific tribe: Jennie is Freedom Fighter, Lisa – Cyber Kid, Rose – Kindness Punk, Jisoo – Droplet Symbol (name of tribe associated with this symbol is still unknown), Gaga – Chromatica. Lyrics appear in the upper-left corner in both Korean and English alongside the face of the singer. Faces are seen morphing into different looks of each artist.
Sam Rolfes, director of the lyric video said on his Twitter that all characters were puppetted live in Virtual Reality. He also added that the creative team spent a long time flying around with them, getting to know their personalities and how they moved, so they could dance together.
Merchandise
- Main article: Official Merchandise
Credits
| Written by | Lady Gaga, Michael Tucker, Matthew Burns, Rami Yacoub and Madison Love |
| Produced by | BloodPop® and Burns |
| Vocal Produced by | Benjamin Rice |
| Background Vocals by | Madison Love |
| Recorded by | Benjamin Rice at Henson Recording Studios, Los Angeles 
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| Mixed by | Benjamin Rice and Tom Norris at Henson Recording Studios, Los Angeles Assisted by E. Scott Kelly |
| Mastered by | Randy Merrill at Sterling Sound, New York, NY
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| Track Participants | Drums, Bass, Keyboards & Percussion by Bloodpop® and Burns |
| Published by |
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| Blackpink Appears Courtesy of YG Entertainment/Interscope Records. | |
References
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