The song was commercially successful, charting at number one in Canada, New Zealand, and the United States while reaching the top five in Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. It has also been certified diamond in Brazil and Canada as well as multi-platinum in Australia, Austria, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the lattermost nation, "Firework" was the fifth-most played single on radios during 2011. The song was later certified Diamond by theRecording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and is one of Perry's four Diamond-certified songs, the others being "California Gurls", "Roar", "Dark Horse". "Firework" has since sold 17 million copies worldwide.
An accompanying music video, directed byDave Meyers, was released on October 28, 2010. It portrays Perry singing and dancing aroundBudapest, with interspersed scenes of young people becoming confident in themselves. An opencasting call for the music video drew an unprecedented 38,000 applicants. OnMuchMusic's top 50 videos of 2010, "Firework" reached the top position. The music video was nominated for three awards at the2011 MTV Video Music Awards, eventually winning one of those, theVideo of the Year, the main and final award. "Firework" was nominated forRecord of the Year andBest Pop Solo Performance at the54th Grammy Awards. The song was performed on all of Perry's concert tours since theCalifornia Dreams Tour, alongside her concert residencyPlay and theSuper Bowl XLIX halftime show in 2015.
"Firework" was written byKaty Perry,Stargate, Sandy Wilhelm, andEster Dean andproduced by Stargate and Sandy Vee at Soapbox Studios inAtlanta,Georgia. It was recorded at Roc the Mic Studios inNew York City,New York. The track wasmixed at The Bunker Studios by Vee.Audio engineering was done by Carlos Oyanedel and Damien Lewis. All instruments were done by Stargate and Vee. Perry provided theLead andbackground vocals,[1] and said in 2010 that "Firework" is her favorite song onTeenage Dream, adding the track has "a fantastic message" along with "a great beat". She also hoped it could serve as "an anthem that's notcheesy".[2]
According to Perry, "Firework" is influenced byJack Kerouac's novel,On the Road. The line "Cause baby, you're a firework / Come on, show 'em what you're worth / Make 'em go, awe, awe, awe" is based on Kerouac's line "burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"[3][4][5] "Firework" is adance-pop song[6] that runs for 3 minutes and 47 seconds.[7] The song is composed in thekey ofA♭ major and is set intime signature ofcommon time with atempo of 124beats per minute. Perry's vocal range spans from A♭3 to E♭5.[8]
MTV's Tom Thorogood praised Perry's vocals, though he felt the lyrics were "clunky".[9] Writing for the same publication, Chris Ryan compared its lyrics toBette Midler's "Wind Beneath My Wings" andMiley Cyrus's "The Climb", finding "Firework" to be more upbeat than those, and called the chorus "mountain-moving". He also commented "Asking if we ever feel like caving in, like falling down like a house of cards, Perry and her big, bad, bouncing chorus comes along to save the day."[10] Although Matthew Cole ofSlant Magazine did not believe its attempt to use inspirational lyrics made sense, he felt "the chorus gains some momentum and the song would work well enough in a club setting that you could forgive its otherwise glaring weaknesses."[11]Los Angeles Times reviewerAnn Powers believed it highlighted how the singer was hollow like the plastic bag mentioned in the song's lyrics, adding "Perry felt like that bag, but then realized what a bag was for: to be filled up with shiny, purchasable things."[12]
Stephen Thomas Erlewine ofAllMusic ranked "Firework" among the top tracks on theTeenage Dream album[13] whilePopMatters contributor Steve Leftridge deemed it "the record's last hurrah; though nothing particularly memorable ... 'Firework' has at least a bit of staying power".[14] Conversely, Nick Levine ofDigital Spy gave the song five out of five stars, calling it "a straight up self-empowerment anthem wrapped in aColdplay-on-poppers club banger from the Stargate team."[15] Chris Richards fromThe Washington Post described the song as "too mushy".[16] Al Fox ofBBC Music deemed track mature and liked the vocals, declaring it "a true demonstration of Perry's musicianship".[17] In contrast,The Journal contributor Jeb Inge found it "entirely predictable" and believed her voice was "over-the-top".[18] "Firework" was nominated forRecord of the Year andBest Pop Solo Performance at the54th Grammy Awards, losing both toAdele's "Rolling in the Deep".[19]
In the United States, "Firework" debuted at position 57 on the issue dated November 6, 2010.[20] On the issue dated December 18, 2010, the song reached number one on theBillboard Hot 100, becoming Perry's fourth overall number-one single in the US and the third fromTeenage Dream following "California Gurls" andits title track. As a result, the album became the first from a female artist sinceMonica's 1998 albumThe Boy Is Mine to have three consecutive singles from an album top the chart.[21] It spent four non-consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot 100.[22] The song toppedHot Dance Club Songs,Pop chart,Adult Pop Songs andAdult Contemporary chart.[23] On the week ending January 8, 2011, "Firework" sold 509,000 digital downloads within the US, which at the time was the fourth ever largest amount of weekly downloads in the country behindFlo Rida's "Right Round",Kesha's "Tik Tok", andBruno Mars's "Grenade".[24] The song was certified 12× platinum by theRecording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[25] On January 5, 2012, NielsenBroadcast Data Systems ranked it as the fifth-most-played single on US radio during 2011 with 509,000 plays.[26] In 2014, she became the first artist in digital history to sell 5 million or more copies of six different songs with "Firework", "Hot n Cold", "California Gurls", "ET", "Roar", and "Dark Horse".[27][28] As of August 2020, it is her highest-selling song in the United States with 7,400,000 copies sold there.[29]
In Canada, "Firework" debuted at number 51 on theCanadian Hot 100 issue dated November 6, 2010[30] and reached number one on December 18, 2010.[31] On October 31, 2010, "Firework" debuted at number 37 in Australia on the officialARIA Singles Chart[32] and moved to number 15 the next week.[33] It peaked at number three and was certified six-times platinum by theAustralian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for sales over 350,000 copies.[34][35] The song debuted at number 34 in New Zealand on October 4, 2010[36] and reached the top spot after six weeks.[37]
The song entered at number five on theUK Singles Chart and peaked at number three.[38] "Firework" became Perry's first song to sell over one million copies in the United Kingdom,[39] and as of September 2017, it is her second-highest selling track behind "Roar" with sales of 1,091,743 copies.[40] It has also been certifiedtriple platinum by theBritish Phonographic Industry (BPI).[41] Across Europe, "Firework" achieved great commercial success and reached the top five in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, while reaching the top ten in France and the Netherlands.[42] The song stayed 80 weeks in the former with many re-entries, and debuted at number 7 by the end of January 2011, becoming her fifth top ten in France and the first since "California Gurls", while reaching the summit at French Airplay by the end of December 2010. It is Perry's longest-running single to date and the fourth best-selling song of her career, with 140,000 units sold, tying with "California Gurls".[43][44] As of May 2022, "Firework" has sold 17 million copies worldwide.[45]
The video is part of a cross-promotional deal with European telecommunications groupDeutsche Telekom. Deutsche Telekom hosted a series of activities and competitions from which fans around Europe would be recruited to be in the video.[46]MTV News reported that Perry started filming the video on September 28, 2010.[2] The video was directed byDave Meyers, choreographed byNatricia Bernard, and shot inBudapest.[47] The official teaser trailer of the music video was released on October 15, 2010.[48] An opencasting call for the music video drew an unprecedented 38,000 applicants.[49] Perry dedicated it to theIt Gets Better Project.[50] On October 28, 2010, the video was released ontoYouTube, and has amassed more than 1.4 billion views as of August 2025.[51]
Perry dancing at theBuda Castle with a group of people as fireworks burst from their souls
Perry opens the video gazing down upon the city from a balcony. As she sings into the night,fireworks burst from her soul[52] and soon inspire young people throughout the city to overcome their fears and insecurities, in the process igniting their own fireworks. One boy confronts his parents, who are in a heated argument and upsetting his younger sister, and pushes them apart. A shy and overweight girl, playing the role ofwallflower at a pool party, finds the courage to shed her clothes and jump in the pool with her friends. At a children's hospital, oneleukemia patient proves to herself that she can publicly show herself with or without losing hair. Elsewhere in a club, acloseted homosexual teenage boy approaches his male friend there and kisses him. One struggling young performer walking home in a dark alley uses tricks from his magic act to win over a group of street toughs who were trying to rob him. Soon the youth of the city are converging upon the courtyard ofBuda Castle, joining Perry to dance and light up the night with fireworks bursting from their own souls, as the camera pans up to the sky for their popping sounds, ending the video.
On May 25, 2014, Perry performed the song as her encore atBBC Radio 1's Big Weekend in Glasgow.[62] She was the headliner ofSuper Bowl XLIX halftime show, which took place on February 1, 2015, and "Firework" was the last song of the performance.[63]
The song was featured on the "lipsync for your life" segment in thetwelfth season ofRuPaul's Drag Race, being performed by contestants Widow Von'Du andJackie Cox.[81] "Firework" was played in the episode "Old White Men" ofThe Dropout on the radio in a car, whenAlan Ruck sings along to this as a fictionalized version ofWalgreens executive Jay Rosan.[82][83] It is performed as a power ballad by the character Satine in the jukebox musicalMoulin Rouge![84]
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. † Streaming-only figures based on certification alone.
^Perry, Katy (October 28, 2010)."Firework (Official)".Archived from the original on August 10, 2011. RetrievedAugust 2, 2025 – via YouTube.
^Perry, Katy (June 28, 2012)."Katy Perry – #VEVOCertified, Pt. 9: Firework (Katy Commentary)". 1:01.Archived from the original on December 21, 2021. RetrievedAugust 19, 2012 – via YouTube.I had actual fireworks, um, on me, coming from right here: my gut. People like to think that they were coming from my upper region, but those people are perverts. Um, it was coming from my soul, my gut, from the part of me that feels.
^"ČNS IFPI" (in Czech). Hitparáda – Radio Top 100 Oficiální. IFPI Czech Republic.Note: Select 08. týden 2011 in the date selector. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
^"ČNS IFPI" (in Czech). Hitparáda – Digital Top 100 Oficiální. IFPI Czech Republic.Note: Select 24. týden 2014 in the date selector. Retrieved July 3, 2014.
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