"Do I Wanna Know?" is a song by English
rock band
Arctic Monkeys, with lyrics written by frontman
Alex Turner. It was released on 19 June 2013 by
Domino Recording Company as the second single from their fifth studio album, AM (2013). It received a
digital download release through
iTunes as well as an accompanying music video. Before its release as a single, the song was premiered by the band live in May 2013 on the
AM Tour, where it was often played as the opening number. It is an
indie rock,
psychedelic rock,
stoner rock,
blues rock and
alternative rock song, and is built around a stomping guitar riff.
"Do I Wanna Know?" peaked at number 11 in the
UK Singles Chart, charted in several other countries and was the first Arctic Monkeys song to have ever entered the
Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, peaking at number 70 in March 2014 and also serving as their "big breakthrough moment" in the U.S.. The song was nominated for
Best Rock Performance at the
57th Annual Grammy Awards in 2015. In December 2019, the song was ranked number three on Guitar World's list of the 20 best guitar riffs of the decade. The song has accumulated about 2 billion streams on
Spotify and ranks in the
100 most-streamed songs in the streaming platform’s history, and its music video has earned 1.6 billion views on
YouTube.
Composition
"Do I Wanna Know?" is performed in the key of
G minor.[1] Musically, it has been described as an
indie rock,[2]psychedelic rock,[3]stoner rock,[4]blues rock[5] and
alternative rock song.[6] The song has a similar aesthetic style and lyrical content to their 2012 song "
R U Mine?"; it is more downtempo while having similar guitar riffs.[7]PopMatters describes it as "a cleaner, slower-burning 'R U Mine?'", while also finding its "stomping" style to be a "steadier take" on the music found on Humbug (2009).[8] The song also contains the edgier sound found on their previous album Suck It and See (2011).[7] In concert, singer and guitarist
Alex Turner uses a
Vox12-string electric guitar.[9]
Structurally, the song follows a common
pop music "verse-pre-chorus-chorus" form up until its second chorus; from that point on, it follows what Hit Songs Deconstructed calls "a more unorthodox flow" ending in a "pre-chorus/chorus hybrid section".
Falsetto backing vocals are also blended with those of Turner's throughout the song. Moreover, the title encapsulates the entire premise of the story, the narrator wondering whether he wants to remain in doubt or know if his feelings are unrequited or mutual.[10]
Release and reception
"Do I Wanna Know" was first played live on 22 May 2013 in
Ventura, California at the first concert of the band's
AM Tour. Throughout the tour, the song was being played as the opening number. It was then released as AM's second single on 19 June 2013, appearing in
digital download formats through
iTunes. It was accompanied by a
music video released on
YouTube.[11][12] The single was released with no promotion, allowing fans to purchase it through iTunes immediately.[13][14] A
7-inch vinyl edition of the single was released on 22 July 2013, with a B-side titled "2013".[15] On AM, "Do I Wanna Know?" appears as the opening track.[16]
Rolling Stone ranked "Do I Wanna Know?" as the tenth best song of 2013, calling it "the highlight of the U.K. crew's soul-rock overhaul album AM."[17] The song was nominated for
Best Rock Performance at the
57th Annual Grammy Awards in 2015,[18] losing to "
Lazaretto" by
Jack White.[19] In December 2019, the song was ranked number three on Guitar World's list of the 20 best guitar riffs of the decade.[20]NME later ranked the song as the fifth best song of the 2010s decade.[21] Music critic
Steven Hyden said of the song "If “
Seven Nation Army” is the most famous rock song of the last 20 years, then “Do I Wanna Know” has to be the second most famous."[22]
Commercial performance
Despite a midweek
on air on sale release, the song entered the
UK Singles Chart at number 11,[23] making it the band's highest-charting single since "
Fluorescent Adolescent" in 2007. It was outperformed by the next single "
Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?", which debuted at number eight. "Do I Wanna Know?" has spent 65 weeks in the UK top 100, this being the longest run of any Arctic Monkeys single, to date.[24] The single was awarded a platinum certification by the
British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on 7 February 2015, indicating shipments in excess of 600,000 units; it is the first Arctic Monkeys single to do so. As of 2024, it is certified quintuple-platinum in the UK.[25]
The song had moderate success worldwide, charting in countries such as
Australia,
France, Belgium, Ireland and Israel. In January 2014, the song reached number one on the
Billboard Alternative Songs chart,[26] the group's first number one single in the United States and their first appearance on that chart since "
I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" peaked at number seven in 2006.[27] On 28 March, the track became the 30th song to have occupied the Billboard Alternative Songs chart top spot for 10 weeks or more. As of the 25 October 2014 issue of Billboard, it logged 58 weeks on the Alternative Songs list, making it the second-longest running song on the chart at the time. It also became the band's first single to appear on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 70 in March 2014.[28] On 26 January 2014, the song reached number four on
Triple J's Hottest 100 of 2013, and, on 14 March 2020, reached number three on Triple J's Hottest 100 of 2010s.
In late 2023, for the 35th anniversary of Alternative Songs (which by then had been renamed to Alternative Airplay), Billboard ranked "Do I Wanna Know?" as the 18th-most successful song in the chart's history.[29][30]
Music video
The music video for "Do I Wanna Know?", directed by
David Wilson with animation agency
Blinkink,[31] was first released onto
YouTube on 18 June 2013. As of June 2020, it has been viewed over 1 billion times,[32] becoming one of only 12 rock videos to achieve this feat.[33] The video begins with a black background and simple visuals of white sound waves (similar to the AM cover art) that vibrate in synchronisation, first with the percussion and lead guitar, then with the lead singer, Alex Turner. As the band enters with the chorus, coloured sound waves illustrate new voices. Simple sound waves then give way to fast-moving, representational line-drawing animations that morph between a variety of female, race car, race car engine, and road racing images. At one point, the undulating white line becomes the "trucker's
Mudflap girl", seen in the single's cover art. The line drawings are interrupted several times with flashes of full-color animation, several that recall the surrealistic style of
Robert Crumb. The increasingly complex video creates, by turns, a somewhat jarring and psychedelic experience, in a style not unlike the Gary Gutierrez animations that were featured in The Grateful Dead Movie (1977). The video ends with the familiar white line becoming two crossed checkered flags, which join together in a single line with the "AM" initials.
In popular culture
"Do I Wanna Know?" was used in a 2013
Bacardi commercial.[34] In September 2014, the song was used in the
pilot episode of
ABC's TV series Forever,[35] and the fifth episode of Israeli series Ish Hashuv Meod. An instrumental version of the song is used in the second season finale of the BBC series
Peaky Blinders.[36] The song was also present in
Ubisoft's 2014 game, The Crew as one of the songs in the in-game radio.
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. † Streaming-only figures based on certification alone.
^Cameron, Keith (9 September 2013).
"Arctic Monkeys – AM". Mojo. Archived from
the original on 27 July 2018. Retrieved 24 March 2021. Superficially, Do I Wanna Know? harks back to the spectral psych-rock the Monkeys essayed so successfully on Humbug
^"
ČNS IFPI" (in Czech). Hitparáda – Digital Top 100 Oficiální. IFPI Czech Republic. Note: Change the chart to CZ – SINGLES DIGITAL – TOP 100 and insert 201434 into search. Retrieved 30 August 2014.
^"
ČNS IFPI" (in Slovak). Hitparáda – Singles Digital Top 100 Oficiálna. IFPI Czech Republic. Note: Select SINGLES DIGITAL - TOP 100 and insert 201435 into search. Retrieved 13 September 2014.