"Gravity Hurts" is a song by Danish rock band

Cryoshell Cryoshell (often stylized as C R Y O S H E L L) is a Danish rock band from Copenhagen formed in 2006. The line-up consists of lead vocalist Christine Lorentzen, guitarist Kasper Søderlund and keyboardist Mikkel Maltha. In the band's early year ...

featuring the Budapest Art Orchestra, released as a stand-alone single on January 12, 2018. Written by Mikkel Maltha, the single was recorded in 2017 and produced by Jacob Hansen. It is a

symphonic pop A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning c ...

song – the second remake of "Gravity Hurts" since its original

alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s w ...

variant was released in 2008. Initially produced for the

Lego Lego (, ; ; stylised as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. Lego consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks made of acrylonitri ...

toy series

Bionicle Bionicle (stylized all caps) is a discontinued line of Lego construction toys marketed primarily towards 8-to-16-year-olds. The line was launched in 2001, originally as a subsidiary of Lego's Technic series. Over the following decade, it beca ...

and used in the promotional campaign of their 2008 ''Phantoka'' sets, the song was originally sung by

Niels Brinck Niels Brinck Kristensen (born 24 September 1974) is a Danish singer and songwriter. Brinck won the '' Dansk Melodi Grand Prix 2009'' with the song " Believe Again" which was written by Lars Halvor Jensen, Martin Larsson Moller and Ronan Keati ...

before a reproduction with fellow Danish singer Tine Midtgaard was recorded in 2011. After the release of the orchestral remix featuring incumbent lead singer

Christine Lorentzen Christine Gyrsting Lorentzen, also known as Lore, is a Danish singer-songwriter, project manager and former television presenter, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Cryoshell. Prior to joining the band, she competed in '' Scenen er ...

, the former versions received singular releases on December 14, 2018.

Writing and recording

"Gravity Hurts" was written by Mikkel Maltha in late 2007 with the intention of being used in the marketing campaign of the

''Phantoka'' toy wave of 2008. The lyrics allude to elements from the 2008 Bionicle storyline featuring the ''Phantoka'' characters. Maltha had previously penned and been involved in the production of two other songs – " Creeping in My Soul" and "Face Me" – also used in Bionicle's marketing campaigns, and would go on to produce more for the Lego. Recorded in late 2007, the version of "Gravity Hurts" made for Bionicle was produced by Eddie Simonsen as an

song and features

on vocals, Kasper Søderlund on all guitars, Maltha on keyboards and Jakob Gundel on drums. The instrumentation was later remastered at Hansen Studios in Ribe, Denmark during recording sessions in 2012. By the time Maltha and Søderlund had established themselves as the band Cryoshell with lead singer

, a new version of "Gravity Hurts" was recorded in late 2011 at Hansen Studios with producer Jacob Hansen. The remix features fellow Danish singer Tine Midtgaard standing in for Lorentzen while she took

maternity leave Parental leave, or family leave, is an employee benefit available in almost all countries. The term "parental leave" may include maternity, paternity, and adoption leave; or may be used distinctively from "maternity leave" and "paternity leave ...

. Søderlund and Maltha reprise their respective guitarist and keyboardist roles while Martin Pagaard features on drums. Midgaard and Pagaard also feature in the song " Breakout" recorded around the same time. In addition to a lighter

pop rock Pop rock (also typeset as pop/rock) is a fusion genre and form of rock music characterized by a strong commercial appeal, with more emphasis on professional songwriting and recording craft, and less emphasis on attitude than standard rock musi ...

tone, a lyric in the chorus of the remix was altered from "Team up for battle we fly" to "Battle is all in your mind". While not confirmed, the change is thought to be a way of distancing the song from the Bionicle franchise, as the former lyric refers to the ''Phantoka'' characters from the line. A third version, again produced by Hansen, was recorded in 2017 with Lorentzen. As opposed to previous versions of "Gravity Hurts" which are alternative rock songs, this remix was produced as a classical

symphonic A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning ...

piece and features orchestral arrangements from the Budapest Art Orchestra conducted by Peter Due.

Artwork

A proposed cover for the release of the Tine Midgaard mix of "Gravity Hurts" was designed by Christian Faber, the concept artist responsible for all imagery concerning Cryoshell, in 2012. However, since the remix wasn't released as a single until 2018, the design was never officially used. The single cover art for the classical version of "Gravity Hurts" was also designed by Faber. It features the Cryoshell logo carved onto a violin as part of its right

F-hole A sound hole is an opening in the body of a string instrument, stringed musical instrument, usually the upper Sound board (music), sound board. Sound holes have different shapes: * Round in flat-top guitars and traditional bowl-back mandolins; ...

with the song title and band name placed beneath. The design also features a

golden spiral In geometry, a golden spiral is a logarithmic spiral whose growth factor is , the golden ratio. That is, a golden spiral gets wider (or further from its origin) by a factor of for every quarter Turn (angle), turn it makes. Approximations of th ...

template that's center lines up with the 'O' of Cryoshell. For the versions featuring Brinck and Midgaard, Cryoshell ran a competition between October 25 – November 15, 2018, asking fans to create the official cover art for the singular releases of the two mixes and post them with the hashtag #GravityHurtsArt via social media. The winning designs were announced on November 28, 2018.

Release and media usage

As intended, the original version of "Gravity Hurts" was used as the primary musical score in the marketing campaign of the Lego Bionicle ''Phantoka'' toy wave of 2008; featuring in commercials, animated shorts and online games promoting the sets and characters. The song also featured in several retrospective videos looking back at the first eight years of the Bionicle franchise. It was released as a free

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...

download from the official Bionicle website on February 8, 2008 before being remastered and receiving an official single release on December 14, 2018. The song also featured on the

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...

Rock Hard playlist of December 2018, while the instrumentation was posted earlier onto Cryoshell's official YouTube channel on February 26, 2015. The mix featuring Tine Midtgaard premiered on Cryoshell's official YouTube channel on January 8, 2013. It was later announced that the remix to be included in a global reissue of Cryoshell's

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debut album as one of two bonus tracks (the other being "Breakout" which also features Midgaard). However, a release date has not been confirmed and the reissue is thought to have been scrapped. The track eventually received an official single release on December 14, 2018. The classical version with Christine Lorentzen featuring the Budapest Art Orchestra was released on January 12, 2018, as a stand-alone single.

Music video

Original version

The music video for the original version of "Gravity Hurts" was shot in a recording studio in Denmark in early 2008 and premiered on the official Bionicle website on March 7, 2008. It focuses on vocalist Niels Brinck recording the song in the studio with guitarist Kasper Søderlund and features clips from various animated Bionicle shorts released between 2001 and 2008.

Classical version

A music video for the classical version was shot during its recording in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

and edited by Sune Daugaard. It premiered on June 6, 2018. The video features lead vocalist Christine Lorentzen singing in a recording booth while the Budapest Art Orchestra record their part in another studio.

Track listing

;Free MP3 download *"Gravity Hurts" – 4:23 ;Digital download *"Gravity Hurts" (featuring Christine & Budapest Art Orchestra) – 4:39 ;Digital download *"Gravity Hurts" (feat. Brinck) – 4:31 ;Digital download *"Gravity Hurts" (feat. Tine Midtgaard) – 4:06

Credits and personnel

;Recording *Recorded, mastered and mixed at Hansen Studios, Ribe, Denmark ;Personnel *Mikkel Maltha – Songwriting,

programming Program (American English; also Commonwealth English in terms of computer programming and related activities) or programme (Commonwealth English in all other meanings), programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program m ...

, keyboards, composition *Eddie Simonsen – Production, recording, engineering, mixing *Jacob Hansen – Production,

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, re ...

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

, mixing *

– Vocals *Kasper Søderlund – Lead guitar, bass guitar, composition *Jakob Gundel – Drums *Tine Midgaard – Vocals *Martin Pagaard – Drums *

– Vocals *Peter Due, Budapest Art Orchestra – Orchestral arrangements, composition

Release history

References

{{authority control 2008 songs 2018 singles Cryoshell songs