Little Red Riding Hood / Weak & Powerless

"Little Red Riding Hood / Weak & Powerless" is a single by singer Violetta DiNozzo and the second to be released from her sophomore studio album "Blood Of The Sacred, Blood Of The Damned". The song "Little Red Riding Hood" was written by Violetta's friend China especially for her, and was produced by Junkie XL. "Weak & Powerless" was penned by Violetta and produced by trance producers Above & Beyond, who became common collaborators with Violetta during the era. The single was released September 7th, 2009. It was Violetta's major breakthrough single after previous single "...And You Are?" became Violetta's stepping stone to greater success.

Background
After an incident at the URAPS Awards 17 saw Violetta's face violently eaten off, plans to continue promoting Violetta's debut album were scrapped as she was forced to undergo facial reconstruction. After she recovered, she got straight to work on her follow-up album. China was asked to pen a song for Violetta, and "Little Red Riding Hood" was her offering. Violetta felt it was so perfect a song and spoke so strongly of her own industry experiences that she decided it was essential to release the song as a single. When the decision was made for the album to be a double-disc affair, Violetta decided the best approach for the single was to release a double A-side showcasing a song from each disc of the album. The song "Weak & Powerless" was chosen to represent the trance disc. Violetta felt this was a good match-up of songs, as they each dealt with themes of adversity and overcoming obstacles.

"Little Red Riding Hood / Weak & Powerless" is considered to be the lead single from the album, as previous single "...And You Are?" with Danelle Becker was not originally intended to be on the album until it proved to be successful and was later added to the album's tracklisting. The album was released alongside the single.

Reception
"Little Red Riding Hood" was extremely well-received; Violetta's image overhaul and the strength of China's lyrics surprised many of Violetta's former detractors. It almost completely overshadowed "Weak & Powerless" which upon its premiere was somewhat ignored. Throughout the single's promotional campaign, Violetta built up a rapport with many of the industry's veterans, who all leant their support to Violetta and the single in hopes that it would have a major impact, which it did have upon release when it became Violetta's then-biggest opening week, and holding on for a long time on the singles chart. On the airplay charts, neither song lived up to previous single "...And You Are?" with short chart lives due to the songs competing with each other for airplay.

Promo CD

 * 1) Little Red Riding Hood (Album Version)
 * 2) Little Red Riding Hood (Calvin Harris Radio Edit)
 * 3) Weak & Powerless (Radio Edit)
 * 4) Weak & Powerless (Ferry Corsten Radio Mix)

CD1

 * 1) Little Red Riding Hood (Album Version)
 * 2) Weak & Powerless (Radio Edit)
 * 3) Superfabulous (ft. Taylor Wolfe)
 * 4) House Of Cards (Above & Beyond 12” Mix)
 * 5) Little Red Riding Hood (Manhattan Clique Extended Mix)
 * 6) Little Red Riding Hood (What A Big Remix You Have!)

CD2

 * 1) Weak & Powerless (Radio Edit)
 * 2) Little Red Riding Hood (Album Version)
 * 3) Superfabulous (ft. Taylor Wolfe) (BT’s Inner Sanctum Edit)
 * 4) House Of Cards (Above & Beyond 12” Dub)
 * 5) Weak & Powerless (Armand Van Helden Vocal Mix)
 * 6) Weak & Powerless (Electricity Trip Edit)

Club Mixes Vinyl Set

 * 1) Little Red Riding Hood (Manhattan Clique Extended Mix)
 * 2) Little Red Riding Hood (Calvin Harris Extended Mix)
 * 3) House Of Cards (Above & Beyond 12” Mix)
 * 4) House Of Cards (Above & Beyond 12” Dub)
 * 5) Weak & Powerless (Armand Van Helden Vocal Mix)
 * 6) Weak & Powerless (Ferry Corsten Club Mix)
 * 7) Superfabulous (ft. Taylor Wolfe) (BT’s Inner Sanctum Mix)
 * 8) Superfabulous (ft. Taylor Wolfe) (Toksin’s Rawshaker Mix)

Little Red Riding Hood
The video fades in during the intro; all we see at first are extreme close-ups of wolves and a red cloak. The camera slowly pulls back during this part to reveal that it is Violetta sitting in the middle of a pack of wolves. She sings the first verse as she tends to the wolves; none of them make any move to attack her. The camera pans off her and down a nearby path toward a gothic mansion. A special effects shot zooms us in quickly through a window to find another Violetta lying on a black couch in a strange room. This Violetta is wearing a large flowing red dress. She sings the chorus as she shifts around restlessly on the couch she's lying on. Constant shots of a ticking clock are shown, growing ever closer to 6 o'clock. When the clock strikes six Violetta can stay still no longer and goes to change her clothes. Once Violetta is changed, she sits in front of her vanity, where her 'prince' comes up behind her laying attention on her and inviting her down to dinner.

Violetta joins him in the banquet hall for dinner; however the table is vast and they are sitting a fair distance apart. Violetta does not like the distance between them and tries to get her 'prince's' attention but cannot manage to do so; he ignores her throughout the meal. Eventually, Violetta has had enough and refuses to eat anymore. She throws a wine glass in the direction of her 'prince' and gets up to leave the room, fully aware of the man's wolfish gaze upon her as she leaves. Violetta storms out of the hall and returns to her room, where she changes her attire again and makes for the exit, looking to get out of the gothic mansion she's in. Backed by four dancers who appear out of nowhere, she walks down the stairs of the foyer as she prepares to leave.

She grabs her red cape and puts it on as she walks out the front door, her 'prince' making no move to stop her. When she gets outside, she meets with a lone wolf, whom she pets lovingly then follows it as it leads her away from the house and her 'prince'. We follow Violetta away from the house, where she stops at the pack of wolves, and we see the same scene we saw from the beginning of the video, and we learn that what we have seen is everything that happened up to this point. The video fades out with the song, as Violetta and the wolves continue away from the house.

Weak & Powerless
The video opens showing a newspaper blowing across a city road. We focus on the paper, and we see the headline reading 'TEEN STAR MURDERS BOYFRIEND'. The picture shows a Violetta dressed all in black being wheeled out of an ambulance on a stretcher. The picture comes to life and we zoom into it to see the black-clad Violetta with dark gothic make-up on, thrashing about wildly in a bid to escape as she is carted off into the nearby mental institution. We pan to a second newspaper as the institution doors close behind Violetta's stretcher. This paper has the headline 'DiNOZZO ADMITS TO MURDER; SEEKS HELP'. The picture is identical to the one from before, except this time Violetta is dressed in white. We zoom into the picture and we see the same scene as before, but this time the white-clad Violetta is calm and motionless as she is taken inside.

This time we follow the stretcher through the door and into the room. As we follow it down one of the hallways, we pan off to look through the window of a room the stretcher passes by. The stretcher disappears as we zoom into the black padded room, where the violent black-clad Violetta from before is hanging from the ceiling, tightly bound in a black straitjacket. There is no furniture in the room. She is thrashing around and swinging across the room screaming while no-one tends to her. We zoom into her iris and are taken to another room, where the white-clad Violetta is seated in a white padded room with a bed and a chair. She is tended to by a nurse who helps her get comfortable as she is settled in. This Violetta appears grateful to be here but with an underlying sadness. She remains calm as she is provided with prescribed medication for her supposed mental condition.

The nurse is alerted by something, and dashes out of the white Violetta's room, making her way to the black Violetta's room, where the girl has managed to break free of her straitjacket while a doctor tried to give her an injection, and the criminally insane version of Violetta has grabbed the needle and turned it on the doctor. The nurse fights the black Violetta off so the doctor can escape and she dashes out, closing and bolting shut the door so that the black Violetta can't escape. The video abruptly comes to an end with a shot of the black Violetta banging on the door and screaming.

Chart Performance
"Little Red Riding Hood / Weak & Powerless" debuted at #4 on September 13th, 2009 with sales of 56,920, which at the time was Violetta's peak position and sales week. Many thought this was too low, as it was expected to outchart Amy Marshall's single "Why I Drink" which was released the same week. Because of this, the single rose to #3 the following week with even larger sales. It is Violetta's longest-charting release to date, lasting for an extended 13 week on chart. On airplay, neither song lived up to the success of Violetta's previous single. "Little Red Riding Hood" peaked just inside the top 10 while "Weak & Powerless" made it into the top 20. Both songs had short chart runs. Stateside, "Little Red Riding Hood" was released on its own as the first single, with "Weak & Powerless" initially not featuring on the tracklisting for the American version of the album. "Little Red Riding Hood" got off to a slow start, and was going to be scrapped in favour of "Superfabulous" which was recorded with Taylor Wolfe to better appeal to the American market. The outcry from Violetta jump-started the song in the US, which then went on to be Violetta's first US top 10 with strong digital sales and airplay. "Superfabulous" was postponed as a US single as a result.

Chart Run
TOTAL: 239,120
 * Week 1: #4 - 56,920
 * Week 2: #3 - 67,742
 * Week 3: #10 - 31,258
 * Week 4: #21 - 13,622
 * Week 5: #26 - 11,583
 * Week 6: #23 - 15,998
 * Week 7: #25 - 12,442
 * Week 8: #37 - 4,727
 * Week 9: #34 - 7,045
 * Week 10: #39 - 2,995
 * Week 11: #35 - 6,467
 * Week 12: #38 - 5,198
 * Week 13: #39 - 3,123