Love the way you lie

Love the way you lie
feat. Rihanna
publication	August 17th 2010 (August 20th in D)
length	4:23
Genre (s)	Hip-hop , pop-rap
Author (s)	M. Mathers , A. Grant , H. Hafferman
album	Recovery

Love the Way You Lie (English for: " I love the way you lie ") is a song by the American rapper Eminem , which he recorded together with the Barbadian pop and R&B singer Rihanna . It is the second single from his seventh studio album Recovery . The song was released on June 21, 2010 as a download and on August 17, 2010 as a CD single.

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Eminem and Rihanna sing Love the Way You Lie at a concert

The song describes a couple in love who have an extreme love-hate relationship. Eminem raps from the man's point of view, only the refrain is told by Rihanna from the woman's point of view. Both use the lyric self in their roles. In the first stanza, Eminem metaphorically describes his torn between love and hatred for a woman. He also alludes to a supposed other lover of this woman. In the second verse, hatred turns to violence and Eminem describes how he throws the woman to the ground and struggles to pull himself together. The third verse is about the fact that despite the violence, both cannot let go of each other and are always reconciled. The song ends with Eminem saying that if she ever left him he would tie her to the bed and set the house on fire. So he builds a bridge to the chorus, in which Rihanna sings: "You will just stand there and watch me burn" .

Several journalists drew parallels between the content of the song and Eminem's relationship with his ex-wife, Kimberley Scott. Among other things, it is mentioned that the man beats his girlfriend because of a lover. This alludes to an episode in Mathers' life when he threatened a lover of Kimberley Scott with an unloaded gun. Furthermore, similarities between the song and the relationship between Rihanna and Chris Brown , which ended in a violent argument, were found.

Writing process and production

The song was originally produced in London by British producer Alex da Kid . After the then unknown singer Skylar Gray showed interest in the instrumental piece in late 2009, the producer sent it to her as an email attachment. Gray wrote a chorus and several stanzas and recorded them in Oregon. Then she sent the demo song to Alex da Kid.

He offered it to the senior director of Shady Records in early 2010, along with a few other demos . Eminem, who was looking for new material for his seventh studio album Recovery at the time , listened to the demo and decided to realize the song together with Rihanna. After the singer agreed to work together, Eminem wrote the rapped stanzas, discarding Grey's original stanzas.

While Eminem's part of the song was being recorded in Michigan, Rihanna's recording took place in Dublin. Makeba Riddick acted as co-producer here.

Music video

Shooting and premiere

The video for Love the Way You Lie was shot from July 20, 2010, directed by Joseph Kahn . On July 22nd, pictures for the music video were published, showing Rihanna in front of a burning house and Eminem in a cornfield. The video was officially presented on August 5, 2010 on the Vevo Internet platform . After just 24 hours, it had 6.6 million views, which was a record for a YouTube video at the time. It is now one of the most viewed YouTube videos with over 2 billion views.

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The video starts with a close-up of Rihanna singing the chorus in front of a burning house. Then a pair of lovers is shown lying in bed and sleeping and played by the actors Megan Fox and Dominic Monaghan . After the woman suddenly wakes up, Eminem starts rapping in a cornfield. The woman sees the name Cindy and a phone number written on her boyfriend's hand, whereupon she assaults him. The man tries to kiss her, but she spits in his face. Then she wants to leave the house, but is held by him and the argument continues until it turns into a kissing scene. Rihanna starts singing again, and flashbacks are shown of the couple meeting in a bar. The video switches back to the present and the man apologizes by giving the woman a teddy bear. Another flashback shows the jealous man attacking another person in a bar. Now Eminem raps the last verse next to Rihanna in front of the burning house. After the supposed reconciliation, the woman moves away from her boyfriend and tries to lock herself in to avoid further violence, but the boyfriend follows her and starts beating her again. Then the couple stands kissing on fire in the middle of the burning house. In the last scene both of them are asleep in bed again, just like at the beginning of the video.

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Cover design

The single cover is in black and white. It shows Eminem leaning against a fence in the left part of the picture, which takes up the rest of the illustration. At the bottom, in different sizes, are the words Eminem , Love The Way You Lie and Featuring Rihanna .

Chart successes

In its first week, the song sold 338,000 downloads in the United States and immediately reached second place on the Billboard Hot 100 . Over the next week, the song was downloaded another 228,000 times and finally reached number one on the US charts on July 31, 2010. It's the fourth number one hit for Eminem in the US and the seventh for Rihanna.

In Germany, the title was also able to enter the charts at number 18 through pure download sales in the 33rd calendar week of 2010. In the weeks that followed, it rose to number 1 , making it a number one hit in Germany for the first time in eight years after Stan (2001) and Without Me (2002) for Eminem . The song stayed in the German Top 100 for a total of 43 weeks, which is also a record for Eminem.

Chart placements Charts Top ranking Weeks Chart placements  Germany (GfK) 1 (43 weeks) 43  Austria (Ö3) 1 (50 weeks) 50  Switzerland (IFPI) 1 (50 weeks) 50  United Kingdom (OCC) 2 (59 weeks) 59  United States (Billboard) 1 (29 weeks) 29

Annual charts Charts (2010) placement Annual charts (2010)  Germany (GfK) 11  Austria (Ö3) 5  Switzerland (IFPI) 3  United Kingdom (OCC) 1  United States (Billboard) 7th

Sales figures and awards

The worldwide sales of Love the Way You Lie amount to about 14.8 million copies. This makes the song the most commercially successful single for both artists to date. Sales in the US alone amount to more than twelve million copies, including views of the associated music video and song stream on the Internet. The song was thus awarded twelve times platinum in the United States . The number of legal downloads in the United States is over five million. The song was also awarded double platinum in Germany for more than 600,000 units sold .

Country / Region	Award	Sales
Awards for music sales (country / region, Award, Sales)
Australia (ARIA)	10 × platinum	700,000
Belgium (BEA)	gold	15,000
Denmark (IFPI)	platinum	30,000
Germany (BVMI)	2 × platinum	600,000
Italy (FIMI)	platinum	30,000
Japan (RIAJ)	gold	100,000
New Zealand (RMNZ)	2 × platinum	30,000
Russia (NFPF)	3 × platinum	60,000
Switzerland (IFPI)	3 × platinum	90,000
Spain (Promusicae)	platinum	40,000
United States (RIAA)	12 × platinum	12,000,000
United Kingdom (BPI)	3 × platinum	1,800,000
All in all	2 × gold 28 × platinum 1 × diamond	15,495,000

Main article: Eminem / Music Sales Awards

Awards / nominations

Won

• Barbados Music Awards
  • 2011: in the category "Best Collaboration"

• People's Choice Award
  • 2011: in the category "Favorite Music Video"
  • 2011: in the category "Favorite Song"

• Soul Train Awards
  • 2010: in the category "Best Hip-Hop Song of the Year"

• Teen Choice Awards
  • 2010: in the category "Choice Music: Rap / Hip-Hop Track"

Nominated

• Grammy Awards
  • 2011: in the "Record of the Year" category
  • 2011: in the category "Song of the Year"
  • 2011: in the category "Best Rap Song"
  • 2011: in the category "Best Rap / Sung Collaboration"
  • 2011: in the category "Best Short Form Music Video"

• MTV Europe Music Awards
  • 2010: in the "Song of the Year" category
  • 2010: in the category "Video of the Year"

• NACCP Image Awards
  • 2011: in the category "Best Collaboration"

• NRJ Music Awards
  • 2011: in the category "Best International Song"
  • 2011: in the category "Video of the Year"

continuation

→ Main article : Love the Way You Lie (Part II)

The song Love the Way You Lie (Part II) is included on Rihanna's fifth studio album Loud . He describes the events after the end of the first part from the woman's point of view, Eminem is also represented in the second part with a stanza.

swell

1. ↑ Lyrics in the booklet
2. ↑ avclub.com
3. ↑ theatlanticwire.com
4. ↑ Video premiere on August 5, 2010
5. ↑ Youtube record
6. ↑ Music video for Love the Way You Lie on YouTube
7. ↑ Description of the video on mtv.com
8. ↑ Single cover at amazon.de
9. ↑ US charts
10. ↑ Love the Way You Lie at musicline.de ( Memento of the original from November 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
12. ↑ ^{a b c d e} 2010 annual charts: DE AT CH UK US
13. ↑ most successful single by both artists
14. ↑ Changes to the gold / platinum award rules in the USA On riaa.com, May 2013, English. Accessed on May 12, 2013. (Since May 2013, in addition to legal downloads, the RIAA has also been awarding gold and platinum awards for views of music videos and audio streams on the Internet.)
15. ↑ Yahoo: Chart Watch by Paul Grein from August 7, 2011 ( Memento from March 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
16. ↑ DE: 2x platinum

Web links

• Lyrics with interpretations
• Music video on YouTube.com