Yeah 3x

Chris Brown had spent much of 2010 flooding the internet with mixtapes and harder-edged R&B records. When it came time to reintroduce himself on radio, he went the other direction entirely. Yeah 3x, released October 25, 2010, served as the lead single from his fourth album F.A.M.E. and aimed squarely at pop playlists. Brown wrote it with Kevin McCall, Sevyn Streeter, and producer DJ Frank E. Calvin Harris later received a writing credit after he pointed out that the track's synth hook bore a close resemblance to his own I'm Not Alone. The matter was settled out of court, and Harris's name joined the credits.

The song is built for dance floors and arenas: a Europop pulse, electro-house synth stabs, a thick bassline, and a beat that producer DJ Frank E described as something like a video game soundtrack. Brown's vocal is bright and uncomplicated, repeating the title in a way that sticks after one listen. It peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 7 on Mainstream Top 40. The international showing was stronger: top ten in Australia, Austria, Belgium's Flanders region, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland, and the UK. Canada, Norway, Slovakia, and Sweden placed it inside the top 20.

Colin Tilley directed the accompanying video, shot at Universal Studios on a backlot dressed as an old neighborhood of storefronts and brownstones. Brown runs through several dance sequences, with cameos from Teyana Taylor, Kevin McCall, and Future Funk, a contestant from America's Got Talent. He performed the single on Dancing with the Stars, Today, and the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, and kept it on the set list for his F.A.M.E. Tour that year. [edit]