"Bangarang" is a song by American electronic music producer Skrillex. It was released as a single from his EP of the same name. It features guest rap vocals from American hip hop recording artist Sirah. "Bangarang" intersperses Sirah's rap vocals throughout the song.[1] The song's title and lyrics reflect the battle cry of the Lost Boys in the 1991 movie Hook.[2]
Sirah forgot to close the window before recording it,[5] and thus birds are audible in the recording.[6]
Critical reception
Jon Dollan from Rolling Stone noted "the laser-blasting inanity of the track, which ends with someone bragging, 'I'm eating Fun Dip right now/Not givin' a fuck.' Not a bad credo for music that makes a discosugar high feel downright pornographic".[1] Garret Kamps from Spin gave the song a positive review, calling it a "massively enjoyable, massively concussive collection of blips and bursts that sounds like something Moby might hear in his head during a heart attack, so thoroughly and dyspeptically is dubstep's characteristic bass wobble distorted and pushed into the red. That remains [his] signature trick..."[7]
Rolling Stone named the song the 22nd-best song of 2012.[8]
Music video
A music video for the song premiered via YouTube on February 16, 2012. It depicts a group of three young boys robbing an ice-cream truck in an elaborate heist. During the robbery, the ringleader of the boys amputates the truck driver's hand by slamming a door on his wrist. While the other boys celebrate, he throws his ice cream down in disgust.
When his gang have grown up to adulthood, they perform a similarly elaborate heist on a group of bank robbers who have stolen several briefcases of cash. They succeed in stealing the cash, and the video concludes with the gang's leader leaving one of the cases with the ice-cream man, walking away happily eating the same ice cream.
Drawing from the song's 'Peter Pan/Hook' theme, the video features references to Captain Hook in the ice-cream truck driver's style of moustache, his right hand's tattoo of a crocodile and after the children's heist cause the loss of his hand, where it is replaced with a hook (Captain Hook's hand was cut off by Peter Pan and fed to the crocodile in the story before being replaced with a hook).
In the United States, the song entered the BillboardBubbling Under Hot 100 chart at number four due to strong digital downloads. However, on the issue date of March 3, 2012, the song debuted at number 95 on the BillboardHot 100.[11] It since reached a peak of number 72 and spent more than 20 weeks on the chart. It has sold over one million copies in the US as of January 2013.[12] In the United Kingdom, the song reached a peak of number 24 and spent a total of 16 weeks inside the UK top 40.
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. † Streaming-only figures based on certification alone.
