"Commander" is a song performed and co-written by American singer Kelly Rowland featuring French DJ and record producer David Guetta from Rowland's third studio album, Here I Am (2011). It serves as the project's international lead single and her debut release with Universal Motown. It was the pair's second collaboration, having previously topped charts around the world with a similar dance production, "When Love Takes Over", in 2009. Rowland and Guetta co-wrote the song with French DJ Sandy Vee and American songwriter Rico Love, who described the song as a "fun and aggressive club record" with themes of female empowerment and lyrics with deliberate grammatical errors. Guetta and Vee produced "Commander" with synthesized dance beats that blend R&B with electronica and house music, with Love providing backing vocals and vocal production. The song was premiered at the 2010 Winter Music Conference and subsequently garnered widespread acclaim from contemporary critics for Rowland's vocal performance as well as Guetta's musical production.
Just over a month after release, it topped the US Hot Dance Club Songs and later peaked within the top-ten in the United Kingdom and top-twenty in Ireland and New Zealand. Entertainment Weekly named "Commander" the number-one summer jam of 2010 and named by Fitness Magazine as one of The Top 100 Workout Songs of 2010. The song was nominated at the International Dance Music Awards for Best R&B/Urban Dance Track. An accompanying music video was directed by Masashi Muto, and portrays Rowland facing herself in various dance-off scenes. Promotion for the release included performing the song live on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge and The Graham Norton Show. The Extended Dance Mix, also produced by Guetta, was released alongside the main single worldwide, whereas the urban remix featuring American rapper Nelly was released in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Background and context In 2009, before Rowland and Guetta collaborated for "When Love Takes Over", the media reported that Columbia Records and Rowland were to part ways by mutual agreement. However in a 2010 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Rowland stated the decision to leave was not hers: the label ended their contract because singles from the previous record Ms. Kelly did not sell sufficiently well. After the release of "When Love Takes Over" she would go on to fire Mathew Knowles as her manager. It has since been suggested Rowland had fallen out with former fellow Destiny's Child singer Beyoncé Knowles. The media reported that Knowles' decision to release one more video ("Why Don't You Love Me") from her album I Am... Sasha Fierce just before Rowland released "Commander" was unfair on Rowland. These claims would be denied by the singer who said that despite the clip for "Why Don't You Love Me" airing several days before "Commander", the media was "making too much of a big deal of release schedules and trying to create a feud where it doesn't exist." She also said, "we all came out at the same time and it really doesn't matter ... I think there's room for everybody ... There's Bey[oncé], there's Ciara putting something out and [Lady] GaGa putting something out, but, because we started out together, people are going to say things like that. But I really don't care, I love her 'til our dying days and that's all that counts."
Composition Music and lyrics
"Commander" is a dance-oriented electro-house-R&B song, set in common time and at a tempo of 125 beats per minute. It was written by Kelly Rowland, Rico Love, David Guetta and Sandy Vee with deliberate grammar errors such as "there's no other who do it like I do it" and "you won't find no lady who does it like I does it". The lyrics have themes around hair, fashion and competing with other women. Guetta also produced the synthesized dance beats, which is similar to his other production, "Sexy Bitch". The end portions of the song were compared to some of the works by hip-hop producer Timbaland. Rowland explained that the hook of the song, "Commander", should be associated with dance instead of the military. "When I command you to dance ... I want you moving, you know? It felt good to have a song that I could express that in."
Themes Rowland was quoted on the theme of the song, saying "I hope to see women singing the song like they're in charge. It's important to know that we are commanders who have the power to shape our own destiny." Love explained to Rap-Up magazine his view of the song, "It's just such an aggressive record, it's a club record, it's a worldwide international record. She's stretching her legs out and she's showing her true vocal ability, she's like the queen of the night on this record." Then during the video shoot of the song Rowland said "I feel like I've finally come into my own," a reference to the exploration of a new musical sound. "With the sound of dance music getting embraced more, I'm very excited, seeing how fans have been responding to the music. Dance music is more of a European thing, but I've been looking on Twitter and seeing fans (in different parts of the country) talking about playing 'Commander'." She said working with Guetta was "amazing" because it is "effortless" and she feels a great sense of "chemistry" when working with him. Rowland felt she was trying something different: "In this generation and this day and time, no one is putting soul in dance music ... no pop artist. I thought maybe that was something I could try. And then it works." In an interview for MSN Xin Rowland admitted the song was "darker" than her previous material but still fun. "I just thought it'd be so much fun to be a commander of course. It's just a statement for me definitely, coming out on my own, filling my space. I'm happy being a commander".
Release "Commander" was selected as the album's first single. Rowland said there were initially two songs in the running for the lead single, but "without a doubt we had to go with ['Commander'], I just fell in love with it ... It's definitely a club banger. You know the first time I heard it, I went bananas." At Pat Field's Disco Party in New York, she told Universal Music Group executives "I know in my gut that it felt good. Nobody could take my thoughts away from that. I doesn't need anyone else to tell me it's good". The song was released on May 17 and 18, 2010 to the iTunes Stores, in France and the United States, respectively. The official extended dance remix was released alongside the main single on May 18, 2010. In the United Kingdom, "Commander" was planned for a June 28, 2010 release. Love and Rowland would later unveil plans for an urban mix of the song with a slower, smoother sound. American rapper Nelly heard the new version in its early stages and asked if he could be featured on the remix. It was released as part of the UK Remixes EP. as well as the second U.S. remixes EP. The official press from Universal Motown Records on May 19, 2010 confirmed that "Commander" would serve only as the "international lead single", leading to speculation another song would be released domestically. This speculation was confirmed when the Ne-Yo-penned, "Shake Them Haters Off" was set to impact on radio stations in the United States. However those plans were changed and on June 29, 2010 two singles were serviced to impact in the United States. "Grown Woman" was sent to urban contemporary/rhythmic contemporary radio stations and "Rose Colored Glasses" for pop radio.
Critical reception "Commander" received critical acclaim, with particular praise for the collaboration between Rowland and Guetta. Robert Copsey of Digital Spy said "It looks as though they're going to be ruling the airwaves all over again ... After she lulls us into a false sense of security ("I feel like the DJ is bodyguard / You see the way he keeps me safe? / With the treble and the bass?"), the track plunges into a pounding electro-house chorus that quite literally orders us to the dance floor ... The result isn't quite as fresh and inventive as some of Guetta's recent output – Kelis' 'Acapella', for example – but it goes a long way towards recapturing some of last summer's magic." The site's other reviewer, Nick Levine, agreed saying that the song "thumps as persuasively as Muhammad Ali circa 1967." Robert Daw of Idolator said "if you think Ms. Kelly is taking the go-go boots off anytime soon, then you'd best go lean against the wall, flower. Rowland's Guetta-produced new single 'Commander' is pure strobe-light adrenaline rush ... [it] will appear on Kelly's as-yet-untitled third solo album ... we're predicting a full on Rowland Renaissance!". With Alex Catarinella of Paper saying "she belts out soaring vocals, is further proof that she's no longer the cute teenage girl sharing a chorus."
Rebecca Nicholson of The Guardian said that before Guetta's collaborations with Kelis ("Acapella") and Rowland, she felt "[David Guetta] was ruining R&B by turning all of my favorite ladies into Euro cheesemongers". However "Acapella" changed Nicholson's mind and she said, "'Commander' is further evidence of this". Whilst Fraser McAlpine awarded the song four stars, his review was neither positive nor negative. He said "Singers always like to sing about how brilliantly attractive and astonishing (and bossy) they are. Even if the words have a double meaning, which hints that they are merely mouthing the self-regard of a rampant egomaniac, who is laughing and rubbing his hands every time they start to sing, they don't mind. Why would they? The song mentions hair, and being better than the other ladies. That's what singers live for. [I awarded it] one extra star for the stoopid grammar switcheroo ... because of the chorus, which rules." Gavin Martin of The Mirror made similar comments neither praising nor criticizing the song, instead saying it will put her "firmly in control of the dance floor".
Commercial performance "Commander" made its United States chart debut on May 18, 2010 (the day of the release) at number thirty-six on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart; it climbed the chart in subsequent weeks and peaked at the top position for one week in July. It also reached the top ten on the US Hot Dance/Electronic Digital Songs chart, in the issue dated June 26, 2010. Jeremy Helligar of 'True/Slant' offered an explanation of why the commercial prospects for "Commander" were limited in the United States, writing, "the dance music Rowland favors is a bit edgier than the danceable pop that Lady Gaga consistently takes to the top of the charts".
In the United Kingdom, single and dance mixes were released as standalone downloads on May 17, 2010, whilst the song was added to urban music radio and UK's biggest mainstream station, BBC Radio 1's C-playlist, that same week. Consequently "Commander" debuted on the UK Dance Singles chart at number thirty-four. The following week the song debuted on the UK Singles Chart at number one-hundred-and-sixty-seven supported by the song's ascension to the B-playlists on the UK's urban music radio station BBC 1Xtra as well as on mainstream radio. Then a week ahead of the remixes EP, "Commander" reached its peak at number two on the UK Dance Chart and number nine on the Official Singles Chart as well as reaching the A-playlist on urban radio. It peaked at number nine on the UK Download Chart and number nineteen on the UK Subscription Plays chart, the single was one of Rowland's longest runs on the UK Top 40 with sixteen weeks. The single became Rowland's third best selling solo single in the United Kingdom with 285,000 copies being sold as of November 2011.Taken from the videocountdown "Kelly Rowland's Official Top 10", broadcast December 10, 2011 on MTV Music UK (http://www.unrealitytv.co.uk/x-factor/kelly-rowland%E2%80%99s-official-top-10-coming-to-mtv & http://www.theofficialcharts.com/our-partners/ )