| "Honey Bee" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Blake Shelton | ||||
| from the album Red River Blue | ||||
| Released | April 4, 2011 | |||
| Format | Music download | |||
| Genre | Country | |||
| Length | 3:30 | |||
| Label | Reprise Nashville | |||
| Writer(s) | Rhett Akins Ben Hayslip |
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| Producer | Scott Hendricks | |||
| Certification | Platinum (RIAA) | |||
| Blake Shelton singles chronology | ||||
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"Honey Bee" is the title of a song written by Rhett Akins and Ben Hayslip, and recorded by American country artist Blake Shelton. It was released in April 2011, and appears on his sixth studio album, Red River Blue, for Reprise Nashville. on November 30th, the song received a Nomination in 54th Grammy Awards for Best Country Solo Performance.
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Blake Shelton debuted "Honey Bee" at the Academy of Country Music awards telecast on April 3, 2011, where he also sang "Who Are You When I'm Not Looking". "Honey Bee" was released to digital retailers immediately after the broadcast.[1]
Rhett Akins and Ben Hayslip, two-thirds of the "Peach Pickers" writing ensemble, wrote the song. Akins said that he first thought of writing a song called "Huckleberry" after seeing an article in Billboard magazine about former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. He then changed the word to "honeysuckle", and came up with the line "You be my honeysuckle / I'll be your honey bee." Akins said that he thought that "it was a different way for the guy to say, 'we should date, I love you.'"[2]
The music video premiered on NBC.com on May 10, 2011.[3] It was filmed in California, and directed by Trey Fanjoy.[4]
Matt Bjorke of Roughstock rated the single four stars out of five. His review praised the "charisma" in Shelton's voice and thought that the song had a "timeless" feel to it.[5] Slant Magazine reviewer Jonathan Keefe criticized the lyrics, but praised Shelton's vocals.[6] C.M. Wilcox of The 9513 gave the song a "thumbs down." He thought that the lyrics were written in a "repetitive, fill-in-the-blank structure," and criticized Shelton for recording "ear catching but substantively bankrupt country boy hokum."[7]
The song sold 138,000 digital downloads in its first week, setting a new record for the most first-week downloads by a male country singer.[8] As a result of the downloads, the song debuted at number thirteen on the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated for the week ending April 23, 2011. This entry makes him the highest-debuting male country artist on the Hot 100 since Garth Brooks (recording as Chris Gaines) debuted at number five in September 1999 with "Lost in You".[9] "Honey Bee" also debuted at number 31 on the Hot Country Songs charts and number 58 on the Canadian Hot 100. By its seventh week, the song had gone digital gold, making it the fastest rising single ever to sell over 500,000 digital copies by a male country soloist.[10] It became Shelton's fourth consecutive and ninth Number One single on the country chart dated June 25, 2011.
Charts
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Certifications
Year-end charts
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| Preceded by "Without You" by Keith Urban |
Billboard Country Songs number-one single June 25 - July 16, 2011 |
Succeeded by "If Heaven Wasn't So Far Away" by Justin Moore |
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