Big Girls Don't Cry (Fergie song)

"Big Girls Don't Cry", also known as "Big Girls Don't Cry (Personal)", is a song written by Fergie and Toby Gad for pop/R&B singer Fergie's debut solo album The Dutchess (2006). The song was released as the album's fourth single in 2007 (see 2007 in music) and topped the charts in several countries, most notably in Australia (for nine consecutive weeks - also becoming the number-one single in the ARIA's Year End Charts for 2007), and in the United States. It was the most played song of 2007 in Brazil (the success of the song there is due to Big Brother Brasil, which chose the song as the theme of the most popular couple of the show) and the most downloaded track in the U.S., with astonishing sales of more than 2,750,000 copies sold. It was also the first single by the artist to reach number one on the United World Chart where it gathered more than eight million points and was certified an impressive four times platinum. In July 2007, Fergie performed the song at the Concert for Diana and Live Earth. By the end of August 2007, the song became Fergie's third number one single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was nominated in the 'Best Female Pop Vocal Performance' category at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, which was held February 10, 2008.

The songs was listed at #89 on The All-Time Hot 100 Top Songs

Background

After "Big Girls Don't Cry" was written, Fergie and her management felt that the song did not fit the theme of her album and decided not to record it. However, her management felt that the song was too strong to let go, so they decided to shop the song around to different record labels. Eventually, the song was sold to Bad Boy Records, where it was handed to Jordan McCoy. McCoy's team felt they had a huge hit on their hands and quickly recorded the song, assuring Fergie and her management that they were going to release it as a single.

However, according to McCoy, after Fergie heard their finished version, she had a change of heart and recorded the song as well. Without the knowledge of Bad Boy Records, Fergie went ahead and tagged it on to her album at the last minute. Jordan and her team were upset by Fergie's decision, scrapped the entire project and considered suing Fergie. However, because Fergie co-wrote the song, she had partial ownership and they could not sue her.

Music and structure

"Big Girls Don't Cry" is a moderate pop written in the key of G major. The tempo is composed in common time and follows the major chord G/B-Csus2-D5. The song was compared to as an exact 2006 version of Wild Orchid.

Chart performance

The song has achieved high success worldwide, topping the charts in over ten countries, including Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Mexico, Austria, Brazil, Romania, Croatia and the U.S. (here on at least ten different charts). In the UK it surpassed "London Bridge" as her highest charting solo single thus far, peaking at number two; so far, the single has spent twenty-four weeks on the UK singles chart.

After spending several weeks in the number two and three positions on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, "Big Girls Don't Cry" finally ascended to number one, becoming Fergie's third Hot 100 number-one single, and second consecutive after "Glamorous" in early 2007. Thanks to this achievement Fergie has become only the second American female solo artist in the '00s to have three chart-toppers from one album after Christina Aguilera in 1999-2000. In addition to the Hot 100, the song topped the Billboard Pop 100, Pop 100 Airplay, Hot 100 Airplay, and Hot Digital Songs charts. It also became her first number one on both the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and the Adult Top 40, where on the later she became the first female artist to top that chart after 52 weeks of number ones by male artists. The song is one of the most successful singles of 2007 in the U.S., as it stayed in the top ten of The Hot 100 for 21 consecutive weeks, 18 of those in the top five.

It is most played song of 2007 on U.S. Mainstream Top 40 radio (becoming the number-one single of 2007 on the ARC Weekly Top 40 and the third most successful track of 2000s on the same tally), and the most successful song of 2007 by peak position on American Top 40 (eight weeks at number one). It is Fergie's most downloaded song in the U.S. with over 2,367,000 downloads, more than "Fergalicious" who has sold over 2,315,000 downloads till the first week of December 2007. It's the 3rd most downloaded song this year in the U.S. behind "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" (+2,510,000) and "Hey There Delilah" (+2,416,000), and the 6th in the U.S. history (it figures as the #1 song overall in iTunes Store's "The Best of 2007 Top Sellers" section). "Big Girls Don't Cry" was ranked at #4 on Billboard's Year-End chart for 2007.

"Big Girls Don't Cry" has become Fergie's most successful single worldwide, surpassing "London Bridge". The song debuted at number thirty-two and reached number one on its thirteenth week, staying there for five consecutive weeks. The song have stayed in the chart for forty-nine weeks, twenty-six of it were in the top ten. The song is now certified four times platinum, selling more than eight million copies and was the third best-selling single of the year 2007, behind Rihanna's "Umbrella" and Nelly Furtado's "Say It Right" and the 10th best selling song since November 1998 according to MediaTraffic. In Australia it was certified 2x Platinum by ARIA for combined sales of over 140,000 copies, and ended as the year's biggest hit, ranked at number-one on the ARIA Year-End singles chart for 2007. It was also the longest running number one single at the top spot with 9 consecutive weeks (10 in the Download Chart).

Also, despite only spending a week at #1 on the New Zealand RIANZ singles chart, "Big Girls Don't Cry" has become the fourth most successful single in RIANZ music history and the second best seller in the country for 2007. It spent a total of 38 weeks on the chart.

Music video

The music video began production on March 30, 2007. The video had a 'First Look' on MTV's TRL on May 16, 2007 and has since peaked at #5 on May 24, 2007.The video topped Vh1's Top 40 Videos of 2007 list. Milo Ventimiglia plays Fergie's love interest.

The video begins with Fergie getting out of her car (a red 1969 Mustang fastback) and going inside a warehouse where she meets her band and practices. Meanwhile, she is seen singing next to her boyfriend (Milo Ventimiglia), who is sleeping. She starts walking through the house, and is then watching herself and her boyfriend from a different point of view getting out of her car. They go into the house, and her boyfriend gets out a guitar and starts playing, while Fergie is singing. Later on, she sees her boyfriend out the window with several guys, one of whom passes him a small package, and it upsets her. Fergie then starts singing the chorus while she is taking her clothes off a clothes line and putting them into a suitcase. As the third verse begins, Fergie is walking around a warehouse singing while wearing a tan-gray baby doll dress. At the end of the song, she is seen getting into her car and driving down the road.

There are two music videos: the main version features the garage scene mixed with the others; the extended, in which the song is performed twice, the first time it was sang features all the scenes, excluding the garage scenes, the second time it only features unseen garage scenes and the normal garage sensual scenes.

As of September 8, 2008 the music video for "Big Girls Don't Cry" has been viewed 23,627,942 times on popular video-sharing website YouTube.

Remix

A remix was made of the song in late 2007, which retained the vocals of the original, but with a new, 1980s-reminiscent sound, with none of the acoustic guitars present in the original. Titled the "Big Girls Remix", it featured reggae star Sean Kingston, who records his vocals over the new beat and after his verses, it goes into the chorus of the original and basically maintains Fergie's vocals for the rest of the song.

Versions

• CD single
• "Big Girls Don't Cry" (album version) - 4:28
• "Pedestal" - 3:22
• "Big Girls Don't Cry" (Hommer remix) - 5:37
• UK/Australian CD single
• "Big Girls Don't Cry" (Radio Edit) - 4:14
• "Pedestal" - 3:23
• Enhanced CD - CD maxi
• "Big Girls Don't Cry" (album version) - 4:28
• "Pedestal" - 3:23
• "Finally" (live) - 3:50
• "Big Girls Don't Cry" (Hommer remix) - 5:37
• "Big Girls Don't Cry" (music video)
• German, Austrian CD maxi
• "Big Girls Don't Cry" (album version) - 4:28
• "Pedestal" 3:22
• "Finally" (live) - 3:50
• "Big Girls Don't Cry" (music video)
• Remixes
• "Big Girls Don't Cry" (Remix) (featuring Sean Kingston) produced by JR Rotem - 3:54
• "Big Girls Don't Cry" (Hommer remix) - 5:37
• "Big Girls Don't Cry" (Makaveli Remix) featuring (featuring Tupac Shakur)- 3:58
• "Big Girls Don't Cry" (DJ New Wave Remix) - 3:57
• "Big Girls Don't Cry" (Jason Nevins Remix)

Charts

Chart (2007)	Peak position
Australian ARIA Singles Chart	1
Argentina Top 40	7
Bulgarian Singles Chart	3
Bulgium Singles Chart	6
Vh1 Top 20	1
Ö3 Austria Top 40	1
Philippine Hot 100	90
Brazil Hot 100	1
Canadian Hot 100	1
Chile Top 20	20
Denmark Singles Chart	8
Dutch Top 40	3
Euro 200	3
Finnish Singles Charts	10
French Singles Chart	11
German Top 40	6
Spain Airplay	4
Hispanic America Top 40	6
Indonesian Single Top	7
Irish Singles Charts	1
Israeli Singles Chart	1
Latin America Top 40	3
Mexico Top 100	9
New Zealand Singles Charts	1
Norway Singles Charts	1
Portugal Singles Chart	4
Romanian Top 100	1
Sweden Top 60 Singles	4
Switzerland Singles Chart	3
Turkish Top 20 Chart	6
UK Singles Chart	2
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	1
U.S. Billboard Pop 100	1
United World Chart	1

References