Musical Montage: Pharrell Williams “Happy”
Illumination cleaned up at the box office this past weekend with The Super Mario Bros. Movie and they cleaned up in theaters and on the music charts in 2013 when Despicable Me 2 opened and featured Pharrell Williams’ single “Happy” on the soundtrack. Released as the only single from the movie’s soundtrack album and Pharell’s album Girl in 2014, the song was a massive hit, becoming the highest-selling and #1 song of the year for 2014 on the Billboard charts. Pharrell was no stranger to the Despicable Me franchise, contributing two pieces to the original movie’s soundtrack, but neither of those was as massive as “Happy”. For the music video for “Happy”, Pharrell created what was dubbed the world’s first 24-hour music video, with the 4-minute song repeated 360 times with Pharrell and various people dancing and miming to the lyrics around Los Angeles. Celebrities like Jimmy Kimmell, Magic Johnson, Tyler the Creator, Issa Rae, Jamie Foxx, Kelly Osbourne, and Despicable Me 2 stars Miranda Cosgrove and Steve Carrell appeared in different segments of the video along with costumed characters of the Minions. The song was later edited to a more manageable 4 minutes and won Pharrell “Best Music Video” at the 2014 Grammy Awards and also went viral with numerous tribute videos popping up on Youtube, many from other cities around the world. You can watch the video for “Happy” below.