"Dance Monkey" is a song by Australian singer

Tones and I Toni Watson, known professionally as Tones and I, is an Australian singer, songwriter, and record producer. She is best known for her breakout single "Dance Monkey", which reached number one in over 30 countries including her home country ...

, released on 10 May 2019 as the second single (first in the US) from Tones and I's debut EP, '' The Kids Are Coming''. The song was produced and mixed by Konstantin Kersting. "Dance Monkey" topped the official singles charts in over 38 countries and peaked within the top ten of many others, including the United States. The song broke the record for the most weeks at number one on the Australian singles chart at 24 non-consecutive weeks. It also broke the record for the most weeks spent at the top of the UK Singles Chart by a female artist with 11 weeks at the top. When it hit number four in the US, it became the first top-five hit solely written by a woman in over eight years. On Spotify, as of March 2024, the song is the most streamed by a female artist and the thirteenth-most overall, with over 3 billion streams. The song was also the first song by a female artist to reach 3 billion streams. The song has received a number of awards. It won Best Pop Release at the

ARIA Music Awards of 2019 The ARIA Music Awards of 2019 are the 33rd Annual Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards (generally known as ARIA Music Awards or simply The ARIAs) and consist of a series of awards, including the 2019 ARIA Artisan Awards, ARI ...

, Song of the Year at the APRA Music Awards of 2020 and Independent Song of the Year at the AIR Awards of 2020. It was also the Grand Prize winner of the 2019 International Songwriting Competition.

Lyrics

When interviewed by DJ Smallzy in July 2019 on Australian radio station Nova FM, Tones explained that Dance Monkey's lyrics are about the relationship she had with her audience when she was

busking Street performance or busking is the act of performing in public places for gratuity, gratuities. In many countries, the rewards are generally in the form of money but other gratuities such as food, drink or gifts may be given. Street performa ...

(street performing) on the streets of Australia: "I wrote this song when I was busking, and about the pressure that I felt to always be entertaining people on the street. And if they didn't like it, when they looked at their phones they could just click something else; ... we are all so used to being entertained at the click of a button." "So when you're uskingon the street, .. to command ourattention, people would be like: 'again! again!' .. 'more! more!' .. or they would just leave. So if you replace he lyric 'dance for me, dance for me' with 'sing for me, sing for me,' it's pretty literal," she said.

Music video

Liam Kelly and Nick Kozakis directed the music video, which was released on 24 June 2019, produced by Visible Studios. It follows the character "Mr. Tones" (played by

), an elderly man who sneaks out of a care home with his friends so they can go to a golf course and have a dance party with other senior citizens. Due to the overcast weather on the day of filming, every shot of the music video had its sky replaced digitally. In 2020, it was added to APRA billion streams list. Note: Non-Australasian co-writers are not shown. As of June 2024, the video has over 2.13 billion views on YouTube. The music video was filmed at Eynesbury Golf Club, Victoria, Australia.

Commercial performance

Upon reaching its tenth week at the top of the Australian Singles Chart, "Dance Monkey" broke the record for the most weeks at number one on the chart by an Australian artist. In November 2019, during its sixteenth week at number one, it broke the record for the most weeks at number one in Australia's ARIA chart history (1983–present), previously held by

Ed Sheeran Edward Christopher Sheeran ( ; born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter. Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk, he began writing songs around the age of eleven. In early 2011, Sheeran independently r ...

's "

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" (2017). "Dance Monkey" also holds the record for the longest time at number one across Australian singles charts, with 24 weeks (including 21 consecutive weeks from August to late December 2019). In the United Kingdom, "Dance Monkey" broke the record for the most weeks spent at the top of the UK Singles Chart by a female artist when it remained at the top of the chart for an eleventh week. The previous record of ten weeks was held jointly by

Whitney Houston Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer, actress, film producer, model, and philanthropist. Commonly referred to as "Honorific nicknames in popular music, the Voice", she is List of awards and no ...

's version of " I Will Always Love You" in 1992–1993 and "

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and

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in 2007. "Dance Monkey" was the sixth highest ranked global digital single of 2019 according to IFPI, moving 11.4 million converted units. In November 2020, "Dance Monkey" was declared the most Shazamed song of all time with 36.6 million searches. In December 2020, Dance Monkey became the third most-streamed song on

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with over 2.5 billion streams, making Tones the first female artist to do so. A few listeners express displeasure of the song, with some even going as far to name it "the worst song of all time". Tones has even expressed that she "loathe that song a lot of the time. A lot of times I don't want to sing it."

Live performances

Tones made her debut on US television on 18 November 2019 with a performance of the song on ''

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''. On 10 December 2019, Tones appeared as a guest performer again in the US on '' The Voice''. The following week, "Dance Monkey" entered the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 top ten for the first time at number nine, and later peaked at number four on the chart.

Accolades

At the

, Tones and I was nominated for eight awards, winning four. Tones won ARIA Award for Best Female Artist and Breakthrough Artist while "Dance Monkey" won Best Pop Release and ''The Kids Are Coming'' EP won Best Independent Release. At the APRA Music Awards of 2020, "Dance Monkey" was nominated for Song of the Year, Most Performed Australian Work of the Year and Most Performed Pop Work of the Year, winning Song of the Year. At the AIR Awards of 2020, the song won Independent Song of the Year. In May 2020, "Dance Monkey" was announced as the Grand Prize winner of the 2019 International Songwriting Competition.

Personnel

Credits adapted from

. * Toni Watson – vocals, composer * Konstantin Kersting – mixing, production * Andrei Eremin – mastering

Charts

Weekly charts

Monthly charts

Year-end charts

Decade-end charts

Certifications

Release history

References

External links