Young Forever

"Young Forever"
Single by Jay-Z featuring Mr Hudson
from the album The Blueprint 3
Released	January 11, 2010 (UK) January 26, 2010 (U.S. radio - Rhythm/Crossover)[1] February 23, 2010 (U.S. radio - Top40/Mainstream)[2]
Format	Digital download
Recorded	2009
Genre	Alternative hip hop
Length	4:14 (Album Version) 3:47 (Radio Edit)
Label	Roc Nation
Writer(s)	Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, Bernhard Lloyd, Marian Gold, Frank Mertens
Producer(s)	Kanye West
Jay-Z singles chronology "On to the Next One" (2009) "Young Forever" (2010) "Stranded (Haiti Mon Amour)" (2010) Mr Hudson singles chronology "White Lies" (2009) "Young Forever" (2010) "Playing with Fire" (2010)

"Young Forever" is the fourth single by American hip hop-rapper Jay-Z from his album The Blueprint 3 off the Roc Nation label. The song was produced by rapper Kanye West. It is a mild rework of Alphaville's 1984 song "Forever Young": the original melody is retained, Mr Hudson sings the original lyrics (primarily during the chorus), and Jay-Z raps in place of the verses.

It was released as the third official single in the United Kingdom ("Death of Auto-Tune" was never officially released there). In the UK, the song was originally scheduled to be released on the same day as Mr Hudson's other collaboration with N-Dubz, "Playing with Fire", but the single was pushed back until January 25, 2010.

The song has been performed several times by Jay-Z accompanied by his wife, R&B superstar Beyoncé in place of Mr Hudson, such as at the 2010 Coachella festival where Jay-Z was a headline act. Jay-Z brought out Beyoncé as a surprise guest and performed the closing song of the night. The couple also performed the song on New Year's Eve in 2010 at a concert at the Las Vegas Cosmopolitan Hotel.^[3][4]

Music video

The music video was released on December 22, 2009 on Jay-Z's official YouTube channel.^[5][6] Directed by Anthony Mandler, the video is black-and-white and shows various aspects of youth across America, intercut with scenes of Jay-Z and Mr Hudson performing the song, sometimes in concert. Singer Rita Ora makes a cameo appearance in the video. Concert scenes were filmed at Alexandra Palace, London on November 4, 2009.^[7] Video produced by Andrew Listermann of Riveting Entertainment.

Chart performance

After strong coverage on the radio throughout December 2009 and January 2010, "Young Forever" began to receive increasing digital downloads.

Following the release of the album, the song debuted at number seventy five on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number forty one due to strong digital downloads the following week . Following its release as a single, the song re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number ninety seven and went on to peak at number ten, giving Jay-Z his 17th top ten single, reaching a new record previously shared with Ludacris as the rapper with the most Top 10 hits.^[8]

In the United Kingdom, the single entered at number twenty seven on the UK Singles Chart. The next week, "Young Forever" climbed eight places to number nineteen. A few weeks later, the song peaked at number ten on the chart.

In Ireland, the single entered at number thirty six the Irish Singles Chart. A week later, "Young Forever" climbed five places in the chart to number thirty one. The single later climbed to its current peak of #14.

The song was the world's nineteenth most digitally sold song of the first half of 2010 with over 1,606,000 units sold,^[9] as of July 2010 it has sold 2,050,000 copies.^[10]

Young Forever was certified Gold in Italy in April 2010,^[11] Platinum in May 2012.^[12]

Charts

Year-end charts

References

External links

• Full lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics