Teamwork

"Teamwork" is a song by American indie pop band Curriculum and features Kleo on guest vocals for the single version of the song. The song was written by Gregory Preston Athanasiadis, Phillip Mandelbaum, Wyatt van Cleef, Dana Breckenridge, and Stephanie Kesh and was produced by Shawn Middlesbrough. The song was released as the third single from the band's debut studio album Syllabus on 23 July 2012 worldwide (including in the UK), just four days before the 2012 Summer Olympics started. The song had long been confirmed as a single by the band, as well as its prospective release date, but it was officially announced as a single in early July when the band premiered the music video of the song without a prior press statement officially recognizing the song as a single or a premiere on radio or internet.

The song is lyrically and thematically about working together as a team and lead singer Gregory Preston Athanasiadis has described the title of the song as "self-explanatory". Sonically, the song includes elements of soft rock, anthem rock, noise pop, and Australian and New Zealander rock/pop music. Vocally, the song is one of the first to not be predominantly fronted by Athanasiadis and is instead mostly sung by a female vocalist who sings most of the verses and choruses while Athanasiadis does sing on the song's middle eight. The album version of the song had the band's "honorary member" Stephanie Kesh sing on lead vocalist but for the single version, her vocals were replaced by those of popular singer Kleo.

To date, the single has received positive reviews from critics and fans who mostly said that the song was "appropriate" for the then-upcoming Olympic games. "Teamwork" became the band's third consecutive top three hit single in the UK and also found chart success internationally, including in New Zealand where the single reached #1 and became one of the fastest-selling singles of the year there.

Background and inspiration
Athanasiadis began writing "Teamwork" in 2011 and was inspired to write it after reading about the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Athanasiadis has stated that he is a big fan of the Olympics and wanted to write a song that reflected his appreciated and fondness with the popular international sporting event. Athanasiadis also cites the upcoming 2012 London Games as inspiration for writing the song. The song initially included lyrics that were meant as a "slight but very random tribute" to the Swedish participants of the 2000 Summer Olympic Games; references to the vexilology of the Swedish flag was also originally included in the song. Athanasiadis, however, would take out any references to Swedish Olympians or flag in the final version of the song and instead made the song that appreciated all participants and Olympians, but to also make the song purely about the importance of teamwork. Athanasiadis says the after the lyrical change the song's message did not truely change but has stated, with the rest of the group "supporting" his claims, that the lyrical change was inspired and prompted by Middlesbrough for reasons unknown.

Writing and composition
"Teamwork" is about the importance and reward of working together as a team. The song is sung by the protagonist who thinks his team has an advantage over other teams because his/her team works together in unity and harmony. The song is a uptempo song that is inspired by noise pop and also pop and rock music that originates from New Zealand and Australia.

For the first time ever, Athanasiadis does not fully sing lead on the song though he does so anyway but only for the middle eight. The song is mostly leaded by Stephanie Kesh who sings the verses and the choruses. Furthermore, Athanasiadis and Phillip Mandelbaum provide additional vocals for the song. Kesh is meant to sound as if she is "screaming but in a melodic and soothing tone", which is an element inspired the noise pop. Kesh's voice is also meant to sound "layered" as well.

When decided that it would be released as a single, all members of the band (including Kesh herself) and their label decided to replace Kesh's vocals with that of "someone notable" as many people did not recognize Kesh as apart of the "core" group of the band as she was considered a "honorary member" for Curriculum. Popular singer Kleo was asked to re-record the female vocals instead. The structure and arrangement of Kleo's vocals for the single version of the song is similar to that of the album version: it once again is meant to sound as if she's "melodically and soothingly screaming" and is also meant to sound layered.

Release
The band announced in interviews promoting their debut album Syllabus that they plan to release "Teamwork" as a single in the summer of 2012, possibly in July. The band confirmed that they will release the single on the same week that the 2012 Summer Olympics start in London; the single's release date has been confirmed for 23 July 2012 while the Olympics start on 27 July 2012. The reason for this is because, again, Athanasadis is a big fan of the Olympic games with him stating "of course, I'm going to watch the Olympics on the day they start. So why not release a single on the day or week it starts as well! I think its cute and convinced my band to do that for me because I want to show my fondness of the games and my appreciate to all the athletes that will participate this year."

The single was officially announced as a single in early July when the band premiered the music video for the song without a prior press release statement or premiere on the radio or internet, though they would follow after the premiere of the video. The band had confirmed that the single will be released on the CD single, digital download, and vinyl formats. The band also plans to release a digital EP which were to include remixes. Apparently, the band planned on making "Teamwork" their most remixed single ever. Instead only a CD single and digital download format version of the CD single were released.

Promotion
Promotion for the single began in late June when the band began posting mysterious random videos on their offical Vevo account. On 20 June 2012, the band posted a video titled "First Lady of the Ocean Queendom", which featured a lady swimming for two minutes with straight while the instrumental track for "Teamwork" was heard in the background. Curriculum confirmed that the video was a "teaser for their new single" in response to the somewhat puzzled reactions to the videos. Five days later, on 25 June 2012, Curriculum posted another video titled "Parade of Nations". Showing a fictional country taking part in what is heavily similar to the "parade of nations" portion of the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, fans were further puzzled by the random videos. Curriculum further commented that the videos were a further tie-in as to what the single and its "visual direction" would be all about. The "Parade of Nations" video, which also lasted two minutes such as the "First Lady of the Ocean Queendom" video, also included an instrumental track of "Teamwork" playing in the background. "First Lady of the Ocean Queendom" received more than 370,000 views; "Parade of Nations" received more than 650,000 views.

Despite honest efforts to make "Teamwork" their most-promoted single, it instead ended up being one of their lowest promoted singles to date. The band announced that they would continue to promote the single even after its release, saying that have more plans for the single's promotion.

Criticial reaction
When reviewed as an album track, while most of the album managed to get mainly reviews, "Teamwork" managed to get mixed to positive reviews. Many people complimented the fact that Kesh was leading and further complimented her vocal performance while the structure and the production of the song was also praised. Lyrics were seen as a problem, however, with critics, saying that they "could've done better...but its alright for a song like this." Despite the lyrics receiving criticism, the message conveyed in the lyrics was positively received.

Commercial and chart performance
On the chart dated 21 July 2012, "Teamwork" debuted at #32 on UK Airplay Charts and has since peaked at #16. The single also debuted at #12 on the UK Downloads Chart; on the following week, the single rose to #2, becoming their second top three single on the UK Downloads Chart.

On the week ending 29 June 2012, "Teamwork" debuted at #3 on the UK Singles Chart. It became the band's third consecutive top three hit in the UK and also their third consecutive #3 single as well, matching the peak of their previous two singles "So Mainstream" and "At A Party". On the following week, the single fell to #9. The single also reached #3 on the Scottish Singles Chart. To date, the single has been certified Gold by the Urapopstar Recording Association Phonographic Selection (URAPS), selling more than 207,000 copies to date in the UK.

In the United States, the single debuted at #40 on the Billboard Hot 100 and on the following week, the single rose to #10, eventually peaking at #4. The single also became the band's second number one single on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart. The single has been certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

"Teamwork" also found international success as well, peaking at #16 in Australia, #10 in Canada, #1 on the Canadian alternative charts, #30 in the Germany, #5 in Ireland, and #1 in New Zealand. In New Zealand, the single became one of the fastest selling singles of the year there and was quickly certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ).

Music video
The music video to "Teamwork" premiered on 27 June 2012 on the band's official VEVO account. The video was direected [some person's name] here. Prior to the video premiering, two seperate two-minute teaser videos were releasing leading up to the release of the "Teamwork" video. The first teaser video was titled "First Lady of the Ocean Queendom" and for two minutes straight featured a lady swimming while the instrumental track to "Teamwork" played in the background; "First Lady of the Ocean Queendom", which was posted on 20 June 2012, has received over 390,000 views to date. The second teaser video was titled "Parade of Nations", which premiered on 25 June 2012. In "Parade of Nations", a fictionalized nation named "The United Kingdom of New Americanadatralialand" is walking the ever famed "Parade of Nations" portion of the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics; the video ends with a message saying "Victory, victory, victory". "Parade of Nations" received over 670,000 views. On 27 June 2012, the official video to "Teamwork" premiered and the prior two teaser videos were revealed to be tie-ins and "hints" to what could be expected in the video.

Production of the video was shot in May 2012 with Kleo's part being one of the final shots for the video. Nothing much was revealed about the video or even the single release of "Teamwork" until the video suddenly premiered on Vevo without prior promotion or notice from the band or their label.

The video has since been described by many as "historical fictional" as it presents some of the events in a (heavily exaggerated) fictional light. Though London did win the right to host the Olympic Games of 2012 in July 2005, as shown in the video where actual news footage was used, even some of the news footage from that meeting were dubbed over with somewhat hilarious dialogue as well as the dialogue of the news anchorwoman who was reporting on the Olymic bid meeting for BBC. The rest of the video is described as being fictionalized soon after the news scene of the video is over.

Plot
The start of the video starts with actual footage from the July 2005 Olympic Committee meeting where it was determined that London would be hosting the 2012 Summer Olympic games. However, just shortly after the announcement is made, a female BBC News anchor announces that the Olympic teams of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand will be forming into one team following the recent unification of the four nations; the newly combined nation and Olympic team will be called The United Kingdom of New Americanadatralialand. The video flashes forward seven years later to London in 2012. What is shown is the Opening Ceremony of the Summer Olympics and the "Parade of Nations" portion is being shown and the United Kingdom of New Americanadatralialand (or UKNA/U.K.N.A. for short) has walked in to do their walk-on the event. A news commentator documenting what is happening at the Opening Ceremony reveals the UKNA has over 2,000 athletes participating in 2012 Olympics while describing Kleo (who plays a gymnast) and the UKNA's rowing team (played by the members of Curriculum) as their "most arguably famous sports stars". As prior the video was mostly dialogue, the music of "Teamwork" begins and for most of the video soon after Kleo and Curriculum are seen working as team doing their best competing in their respective sport/event which is gymnastics and rowing. Kleo is seen during a series of gymnastics series and Curriculum is seen giving their all as the row with determination. Eventually both Curriculum and Kleo finish their events and after the judges have tabulated their scores, both win gold medals in their respective events.

Reception
The video received mostly positive reviews who complemented the video for capturing the "Olympic spirit". Since before the video, people did not Kleo would be on the single mix of "Teamwork", after seeing the video people found Kleo's appearance in the video and on the track as "pleasant" surprise. The video managed to get over eleven million views.