"Ladies and Gentlemen" is a song by American rock band Saliva. It was released in November 2006 as the first single off their fifth studio album Blood Stained Love Story (2007). The song received negative reviews from critics. "Ladies and Gentlemen" peaked at numbers 2 and 25 on both the BillboardMainstream Rock and Alternative Songs charts respectively, and is also the band's best-selling single, being certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2010. An accompanying music video for the song, directed by Stephen Penta, features two women boxing each other in a ring while lead singer Josey Scott plays the role of an announcer, trainer and referee throughout the video.
Background
Lead singer Josey Scott said the band was trying to write "a song that was filled with dynamics that we knew the sporting community would love and video games and movies would love." After having written 9 or 10 songs for the album already, Scott was brainstorming with producer Bob Marlette. Scott told the producer, "What if I do the verses like a circus announcer? Remember when you were a kid and you go to the circus and the ringmaster comes out? 'Ladies and gentlemen'." Scott thought Marlette would ridicule him for the idea, but Marlette thought it was brilliant.[1]
Scott also said the pre-chorus lyric, "Welcome to the show", was emulating Def Leppard, and he put the word "boom" in the chorus because the last time Saliva said "boom" in a song ("Click Click Boom"), it was licensed for several sports arenas, video games, and movie trailers.[1]
Critical reception
"Ladies and Gentlemen" garnered negative reviews from music critics. Rolling Stone's Christian Hoard criticized the song for being "crappy arena metal".[2]PopMatters contributor Andrew Blackie found it "painfully unnecessary", describing it as "[A] third-rate downtuned distortion-fest, the verses aren’t so much sung as spoken... in a monotonous swagger."[3] Conversely, Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly praised Saliva for infusing the song with a "bright, leavening pop sensibility."[4]
Music video
Directed by Stephen Penta, the video takes place in a ring where two former Suicide Girls models are boxing each other, while lead singer Josey Scott is playing "multiple roles including announcer, trainer and referee."[5]
Uses in media
The song was the official theme song for the World Wrestling Entertainmentpay-per-view, WrestleMania 23. In an interview with WWE.com, frontman Josey Scott stated that the song was written with the event in mind for WWE, saying "That's what we wrote it for. We wrote it for our friends at WWE".[6] It was also used on the NFL Network during coverage of Super Bowl XLI and the BBC HD channel's Christmas 2008 promotional advertisement, which showcased some of the movies and TV shows the channel was showing during the Christmas period. It was also used the theme for the 2007 annual AST Dew Tour, Universe of Entertainment commercials for the SonyPlayStation 3 and the television spots for the 2009 film Star Trek.
