“Stan” achieved worldwide success with multiple #1 placements on the following countries’ charts: United Kingdom
Despite its massive success, it was interestingly not nominated for a Grammy. The collaboration greatly boosted Dido’s popularity around the world (especially in the United States).
Creating and performing the song, gave Dido the opportunity to work with Eminem (who was at that time at the peak of his career). Before “Stan”, had Eminem and Dido ever worked together? The role of the pregnant girlfriend in the video was played by Dido, who also sings the chorus. Interestingly enough, Sawa’s agent and others on his team were against him taking the role. But being a fan of Eminem, Devon decided to do so anyway. Dre, who is also the executive producer of “the Slim Shady LP” and Eminem’s label boss.Īnd just to note, the person who portrayed the character of Stan in the music video is Canadian actor Devon Sawa. He says that working on the video was one of the highlights of his career. It was released as the third single from that album on 21 November 2000. This went down history as one of the most notable live performance of the song.ĭid Eminem release “Stan” as a single from The Marshall Mathers LP? In fact the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) organized a protest outside of the Staples Center, the venue of the 2001 Grammy Awards, against The Marshall Mathers LP, which ended up winning Grammy for the Best Rap Album.Įminem and Dido performed “Stan” on the 7 October 2000 episode of “Saturday Night Live”. Famous Live PerformancesĮminem performed “Stan” at the 2001 Grammy Awards, with openly-gay singer Elton John singing the chorus in place of Dido. The reason for this move is at the time Eminem was facing backlash from lyrics pertaining to homosexuals and sexism in some of his other songs. The song itself was nominated for Best Song at the 2001 MTV Europe Music Awards.
MTV aired an edited version of the music video where portions were removed from each verse as well as certain imagery they deemed offensive. Even MTV’s full version of the video, which measures in at 8 minutes and 15 seconds, had portions edited. Some of these nominations included the following: Furthermore, it was also nominated for a number of MTV Video Music Awards in 2001. The music video for “Stan” was nominated for Video of the Year at the 2001 BET Awards. Stan’s full name, as revealed by the tombstone on the music video, is “Stanley Mitchell”.ĭido went on to name her first child, who was born in July of 2011, “Stan”, although she states she didn’t do so because of this song. In the song, Matthew seeks revenge against Em for the death of his brother. Apparently this prevented that version from being released as a single.Įminem released a sequel to “Stan” entitled “Bad Guy” in 2014. This time around instead of taking on the role of Stan, Eminem instead plays his younger brother Matthew.
The producers of the Grammy Awards sued the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster in 2001 due to their software being used to illegally download the Eminem / Elton John version “hundreds of thousands of times”. When Rolling Stone published its list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” in December of 2004, this song came in at number 296. The chorus of the song is a remixed sample of the first verse of Dido’s 2000 track “Thank You” from her album No Angel. Logically both the single and the album greatly increased in popularity due to the success of “Stan”. The album was released on as Eminem’s third studio album. This is the third song on the tracklist of Eminem’s album The Marshall Mathers LP. In 2017 the word “stan”, derived from this song, became so popular that it was entered into the English Oxford Dictionary. It is defined as an obsessive fan of a celebrity or famous figure. The production of the track was done by DJ Mark the 45 King, a producer from the Bronx, New York. Eminem and two other songwriters (Dido and Paul Herman) receive songwriting credits for “Stan”.