On This Day: LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” Hits No. 1 and Launches a Short and Strange Career

July 16, 2011 was a normal day for most. But for the uncle-nephew duo LMFAO, it marked a stark change in their career in the hip-house music genre.

On this day in 2011, the group’s hit song “Party Rock Anthem” hit no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and stayed there for six weeks. In total, it stayed on the Billboard Hot 100 for a whopping 68 weeks total.

“Party Rock Anthem”, which also featured Lauren Bennett and GoonRock, became the most-played song across the globe for quite a while, if not the better part of the year. As of 2024, the music video for the song has almost 2.4 billion views on YouTube. It paved the way for another hit, “Sexy And I Know It”, just a few months later. That track hit no. 1 as well and stayed on the Hot 100 chart for 42 weeks.

With the success of that second single, LMFAO was set to burst out of the one-hit wonder bubble and become international superstars. Unfortunately, they disbanded a little more than a year later. So… what happened?

Why Did LMFAO Break Up After The Success Of “Party Rock Anthem”?

At the peak of their fame, LMFAO performed with Madonna at the Super Bowl in early 2012. That same game, they also appeared during a Budweiser commercial. Everyone wanted to know what the party-rockin’ duo was going to do next. But in September, the band announced their hiatus.

It’s worth noting that LMFAO had been around for a few years before hitting it big with “Party Rock Anthem”. According to member Redfoo, he and fellow member SkyBlu wanted to test the waters of their solo careers.

“I feel like we’ve been doing this for so long, four or five years,” said Redfoo in the hiatus announcement.

SkyBlu later said that the plan was to eventually come back “stronger than ever”.

The split was allegedly supposed to be temporary. However, LMFAO is still left in 2010s history over a decade later. Redfoo attempted to revive the energy of “Party Rock Anthem” with the release of his solo album Party Rock Mansion in 2016, but it ended up being a massive commercial failure. There were also rumors that the two had a falling out, which was the real cause of the breakup.

Will we ever see them again? Will the band ever release a song as infectious as “Party Rock Anthem”? Probably not. Rest in peace, LMFAO.

Photo by Jeff Kravitz

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