title: Welcome to Country

text: Welcomes to Country are a form of Aboriginal ceremony dating back many thousands of years, used to welcome other peoples from other areas and as a cultural exchange. The Yolngu peoples engaged in the ceremony to welcome Dutch explorers in the seventeenth century, and with Makassan trepangers from the mid-eighteenth century. It is seen as way of making newcomers feeling comfortable and connected, and may be the basis for forging important future relationships.


title: Welcome to Country

text: The 1973 Aquarius Festival held in Nimbin, New South Wales, by the Australian Union of Students (AUS) has been documented as Australia's first publicly observed Welcome to Country, although it was not called this at the time. Organisers of the alternative lifestyle festival, considered Australia's "Woodstock", were challenged by Indigenous activist Gary Foley to seek permission from traditional owners to hold the festival on their land. San people from the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa, including artist Bauxhau Stone, were sent out by AUS representatives to invite Aboriginal people to the festival, and funding from the Whitlam government paid for many busloads to travel to the festival. An estimated 200 to 800 Indigenous Australians attended the two-week festival, marking a significant kindling of relationships with Australia's counterculture. A ceremony was conducted by Uncle Lyle Roberts and song man Uncle Dickee Donnelly, the last known initiated men of the area.


title: Welcome to Country

text: The second recorded Welcome to Country occurred in 1976, when entertainers Ernie Dingo and Richard Walley developed a ceremony to welcome a group of Māori artists who were participating in the Perth International Arts Festival. The welcome, extended on behalf of the Noongar people, was intended to mirror the visitors' own traditions, while incorporating elements of Aboriginal culture. Walley recalled: Māori performers were uncomfortable performing their cultural act without having been acknowledged or welcomed by the people of the land.


title: Welcome to Country

text: Arts administrator Rhoda Roberts says that the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust was instrumental in developing both Welcomes and Acknowledgements to Country during the 1980s.


title: Welcome to Country

text: Acknowledgements of country are a more recent development, associated with the Keating government of the 1990s, the reconciliation movement and the creation of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR) with Yawuru man Pat Dodson as chair. After the "Mabo case", in which the historical fiction of "terra nullius" was overturned and native title was recognised in Australia. According to Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung man Tiriki Onus, head of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development at the University of Melbourne, it was after Mabo that Acknowledgement of Country grew among "grassroots communities concerned with issues of reconciliation". Wiradjuri woman Linda Burney, a member of the CAR in those days, says that there was no formal strategy to bring the Acknowledgement of Country into Australian life, but it just grew organically and became accepted as part of many types of gatherings. It is seen as a good way to engage people with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and culture, and the wider Australian community sees the relationship feels that its important to have a good relationship with Australia's Indigenous peoples.


title: Welcome to Country

text: Welcomes and Acknowledgements have since been incorporated into openings of meetings and other events across Australia, by all levels of government, universities, community groups, arts other organisations.


title: Welcome to Country

text: Since 2008, when it was made on the day before Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made the Apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples, a Welcome to Country has been incorporated into the ceremonial opening of the Parliament of Australia, an event which occurs after each federal election. The Welcome includes a speech as well as traditional music and dance. Given that Parliament sits in Canberra, traditionally part of Ngambri country, a Ngambri elder officiates.


title: Welcome to Country

text: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were largely excluded from Australian history books and from the democratic process in Australia for the first two centuries of white settlement, since the colonisation of Australia from 1788. Including recognition of Indigenous peoples in events, meetings and national symbols is seen as one part of repairing the damage caused by exclusion from settler society. Incorporating Welcome or Acknowledgement protocols into official meetings and events "recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of land" and shows respect for traditional owners.


title: Welcome to Country

text: Both Welcomes and Acknowledgements recognise the continuing connection of Aboriginal traditional owners to their country, and offer appropriate respect as part of the process of reconciliation and healing. As they have become more commonplace and people have become used to hearing them, efforts are being made by many to keep the words alive and make them meaningful. They may be used to inform and educate as well as being entertaining at the same time.


title: Welcome to Country

text: The Victorian Government advised that Welcomes are advised for major public events, forums and functions in locations where traditional owners have been formally recognised. A Welcome to Country can only be undertaken by an elder, formally recognised traditional owner or custodian to welcome visitors to their traditional country. The format varies; it may include a welcome speech, a traditional dance, and/or smoking ceremony.


title: Welcome to Country

text: If a local elder is not available, or if the traditional owners have not been formally recognised for the area, an Acknowledgement of Country, also known as Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners, performed by the host of the event, is appropriate. If there is no formal recognition of traditional ownership, it is advised to limit recognition to an Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners generally, without making a reference to the name of any specific traditional owners.


title: Welcome to Country

text: Similar acknowledgements, e.g. land acknowledgements, have become common at public events in Canada and have begun to be adopted by Native American groups in the United States.


title: Welcome to Country

text: Some jurisdictions, such as New South Wales, make a Welcome (or, failing that, Acknowledgement) mandatory at all government-run events.


title: Welcome to Country

text: As Welcomes to Country have become more frequent across the country, they have attracted criticism from politicians, historians and commentators including Bess Price, Keith Windschuttle, Andrew Bolt and Bill Hassell. Critics consider such ceremonies to be a form of tokenism, and claim that they do not reflect any element of traditional Aboriginal culture. Then leader of the Federal Opposition, Tony Abbott called it "a genuflection to political correctness" and that it "lacks heart". Price, a Warlpiri woman and former parliamentarian, characterised Welcomes as "not particularly meaningful to traditional people". Windschuttle calls them "an invented tradition". Hassell says that "Although I loathe and detest welcomes to the country, I sit through them patiently when we have these ceremonies".


title: Welcome to Country

text: The Victorian government overturned the previous government's observance protocols in 2011, and a municipal Council in NSW ceased mandating it in 2017. Critics such as Abbott and Windschuttle consider them "part and parcel of being politically correct".


title: Welcome to Country

text: Criticising the frequent practise of the Welcome/Acknowledgement to country, Senator for the Northern Territory, Jacinta Price, has stated "I've had my fill of being symbolically recognised. It's not the road to go down. We have to start treating everybody as Australian citizens and have the same standards for everyone." referring to it as a "throwaway line".


title: Welcome to Country

text: The Australian band Midnight Oil released a single in August 2020 entitled "Gadigal Land", whose lyrics include a play on the traditional Welcome to Country as a critical review of Aboriginal history. Starting with the line "Welcome to Gadigal land", it goes on to mention smallpox, poison and grog (alcohol), which were all brought to Australia by the colonisers. The song urges reconciliation.


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: Sagat first appears as the main antagonist and final boss of the original "Street Fighter". After the player defeats the eight initial opponents, their character Ryu (or Ken on Player 2's side) is taken to Thailand to face the final two opponents: Adon, Sagat's apprentice and Sagat himself. After being defeated, Sagat tells the player that he or she is the "strongest Street Fighter in the world".


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: His next appearance was in "", where he appears as one of the four Grand Masters, being the third CPU-controlled boss in the single player mode before M. Bison. He appears in this game with multiple scars, including a large diagonal one across his chest that he received from Ryu as a result of his loss in the first game. This scar reminds Sagat of the grudge he harbors against Ryu after the loss in the first tournament. Like the other bosses, he became a playable character in the subsequent revisions of the game beginning with "".


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: Sagat appears in the prequel series "". In addition to fleshing out his rivalry with Ryu, a rivalry with his former apprentice Adon is introduced there as well, along with Dan Hibiki, a character whose father, Go, was killed by Sagat in a fight years before. It was also revealed that Sagat lost his right eye while fighting Dan's father. The "Alpha" series also show him to become part of M. Bison's criminal organization Shadaloo, but leaves in "Street Fighter Alpha 3" after he discovers that Bison had wanted to experiment his Psycho Power against Ryu, allowing him to realize the pettiness of his vendetta against Ryu. Sagat is an unlockable character in "Street Fighter EX3", where his story has his resentment for Ryu fading.


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: Sagat returns in "Street Fighter IV" once again as a playable character with the animosity in his feud with Ryu no longer present and even referring to him in his ending as a "friend". In "Street Fighter V", Sagat is featured as part of the third season of downloadable content. During his story, he is briefly tempted by Satsui no Hadō but overcomes it, coming to understand Ryu's struggles in the process.


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: Sagat also appears in crossover games such as "Capcom vs. SNK 2" and "Street Fighter X Tekken", in which he is paired up with Dhalsim and in other titles, including mobile puzzle game "Street Fighter: Puzzle Spirits", where he is a super-deformed character.


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: Sagat is very tall at , two heads taller than Ryu in "Street Fighter", a trait he uses to his advantage in his long-reaching attacks. He possesses a hulking, muscular build at . His hands are massive enough to close around the entire head of many of his opponents. He is depicted as being bald.


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: In the "Street Fighter II" series, Sagat's in-game sprite does not display the highly muscular build of the "Street Fighter Alpha" series, although even at that time he had been consistently portrayed so in his "Super Street Fighter II Turbo" ending, and other Capcom artworks. Later on, the game graphics developed to match those of the comics. Sagat wears an eyepatch over his severely damaged right eye, though the lack of depth perception and loss of peripheral vision do not seriously hamper his ability as a powerful fighter. Sagat lost his eye during a fight with Dan Hibiki's father, Go, in which Sagat killed him. The massive scar on his chest is a constant reminder of Ryu's victory. Sagat makes no attempt to conceal the disfigurement, and in fact draws power from the hateful memory it invokes; in "Capcom vs. SNK 2", Sagat's scar glows while he charges energy for his "S-Groove" super meter.


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: Sagat wears traditional Muay Thai shorts (which have the word "Tiger" printed on the waistband) and classic wraps. The trunks have colors varying from purple with white trim in the original "Street Fighter", to blue with red trim in "Street Fighter II" and to blue with yellow trim in "Street Fighter Alpha". He wears tape around his hands and feet to protect his knuckles and shins.


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: In the anime film "", Sagat appears in the opening scene fighting against Ryu during a thunderstorm, receiving his iconic chest wound at the climax of the fight. The battle takes place at a grass field during a stormy night, a scenery which was remade as a stage in "Street Fighter Alpha 2" for Sagat's final match in the single-player mode against Ryu. Afterwards, he is seen working for Bison. Though he has little impact on the film's main story, he asks Bison for a chance to fight Ryu again when they locate him, but Bison refuses and instead sends Sagat to New York to dispatch Cammy and Vega. His fate after this is unknown. He was voiced by Shigezo Sasaoka in Japanese and Peter Spellos (as David Conrad) in English.


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: In the live-action film version of "Street Fighter", Sagat was portrayed by Native American actor Wes Studi as one of the film's main antagonists. He was given the full name of Viktor Sagat and is depicted in the film as a black market arms dealer that runs the Shadaloo Tong and gets conned by Ryu and Ken. He is also depicted with his eye patch over his left eye, instead of his right. In this version, he was a former Muay Thai cagefighter who went by the name "Iron Fist" before retiring. In the film's climax, he is defeated by Ken, but escapes from Bison's base before it explodes and apparently evades capture. In the video game versions of "Street Fighter: The Movie" for the and , the film version of Sagat is a selectable character, where he wears yellow boxing trunks and lacks his chest scar. Uniquely, this portrayal was also of a more average size instead of being well over tall.


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: In the American animated TV series "Street Fighter", which combined plot elements of the game and the live-action movie mentioned above, he is depicted as Bison's second in command. Once again, he is given the full name of Viktor Sagat.


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: In the Japanese "Street Fighter II V" animated series, Sagat is a former Muay Thai champion who was falsely incriminated by a drug ring known as the Ashura (a division of Shadaloo) after refusing to throw a fight for them. He encounters Ryu after he is imprisoned in the same jail as a result of a frame-up by the same gang. They start off as rivals, but eventually develop a mutual respect for each other and team up against the prison's corrupt warden, Nucci. Ryu and Ken eventually take down Ashura and uncover evidence to clear Sagat's name, resulting in Sagat's release. In gratitude, Sagat directs Ryu and Ken to seek out Dhalsim in India to learn Hadou. Dhalsim himself mentions that Sagat once visited him, seeking to learn Hadou, but Dhalsim refused. The Sagat in this series lacks the eye-patch and scar from his video game counterpart. He also has a darker skin tone and wears a Mongkhon on his head. This version is not antagonistic and is not affiliated with Shadaloo as opposed to other versions. In the English dub, he makes a reference to his sisters, confirming that he is not an only child.


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: 1990s rapper Sagat derived his stage name from the character. He even wore an eye patch over one eye, similar to the character.


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: In "Imaginationland", an Emmy-winning "South Park" episode, a representation of the character is included in a shot alongside other noted imaginary villains, including fellow "Street Fighter" antagonist Akuma.


title: Sagat (Street Fighter)

text: Sagat ranked at number 22 in the list of Best Characters of 1991 from the February 1992 issue of "Gamest" magazine in Japan. IGN ranked Sagat at number eleven in their "Top 25 Street Fighter Characters" article, noting him as one of the few characters in the original "Street Fighter" and adding "The shaved head, the scarred chest, and most of all the eyepatch, they come together to make a guy who means business." GameDaily listed him at number eight on their "Top 20 Street Fighter Characters of All Time" article, citing his role as the first boss in the series and praising his appearance. UGO Networks placed him at the first spot on their list of "Top 50 Street Fighter Characters", stating "Sagat is arguably the strongest fighter in the series and an important part of the overarching storyline of the series." UGO also listed him eleventh in their article of best scarred character as the scar symbolizes Sagat's defeat at the hands of Ryu and his desire to continue fighting. GameSpy named him one of the "25 Extremely Rough Brawlers" in video gaming with comments focused on his appearance. In a humor article by GameSpy, Sagat was labelled as an overpowered character in his "Street Fighter II" incarnation. Similarly, his "Street Fighter IV" received similar complaints to the point of being compared with the game boss, Seth. In response to this, Ryota Niitsuma, assistant producer of the arcade version of the game, admitted that the two ended up being overpowered, but players could still defeat them without too many difficulties. "Complex" ranked Sagat as the "30th most dominant fighting game character", stating "This insanely tall Muay Thai champion is revered and respected. He doesn't have eye pupils plus he sports a nasty scar on his chest." "Complex" also ranked Sagat as the "6th best Street Fighter character", commenting "Sagat and Ryu have some history, but Sagat can hold his own in a fight, and if he had him in our hands on that fateful battle, he would have wrecked Ryu, plain and simple." In 2016, Screen Rant named Sagat the "9th Most Powerful Street Fighter Character", commenting "His battle prowess to warrant being a final boss again has likely long been surpassed, but he’s still a worthy rival even for somebody of the caliber of Ryu." In a 2018 worldwide poll by Capcom, Sagat was voted seventh most popular "Street Fighter" character.


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: John I Tzimiskes (; 925 – 10 January 976) was the senior Byzantine emperor from 969 to 976. An intuitive and successful general, he strengthened the Empire and expanded its borders during his short reign.


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: John I Tzimiskes was born to a father belonging to the Kourkouas family of Armenian origin, and a mother belonging to the Phokas family of Greek-Armenian origin. Scholars have speculated that ""Tzimiskes"" was derived either from the Armenian "Chmushkik" (Չմշկիկ), meaning "red boot", or from an Armenian word for "short stature", as explained by Leo the Deacon. A more favorable explanation is offered by the medieval Armenian historian Matthew of Edessa, who states that Tzimiskes was from the region of Khozan, from the area called Chmushkatzag. Khozan was located in the region of Paghnatun, in the Byzantine province of Fourth Armenia (Sophene). Either way, "Tzimiskes" was a surname used by other members of John's family, as the Armenian historian Stepanos Asoghik refers to him as the "grandson of Č‘mškik".


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: Tzimiskes was born in 924 or 925, as Leo the Deacon states that he died aged 51, to an unnamed member of the Kourkouas family and the sister of the future Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas. Both the Kourkouai and the Phokadai were distinguished Cappadocian families, and among the most prominent of the emerging military aristocracy of Asia Minor. Several of their members had served as prominent army generals, most notably the great John Kourkouas, who conquered Melitene and much of Armenia.


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: Contemporary sources describe Tzimiskes as a rather short but well-built man, with reddish blonde hair and beard and blue eyes who was attractive to women. He seems to have joined the army at an early age, originally under the command of his maternal uncle Nikephoros Phokas. The latter is also considered his instructor in the art of war. Partly because of his familial connections and partly because of his personal abilities, Tzimiskes quickly rose through the ranks. He was given the political and military command of the theme of Armenia before he turned twenty-five years old.


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: His marriage to Maria Skleraina, daughter of Pantherios Skleros and sister of Bardas Skleros, linked him to the influential Skleros family. Little is known about her; she died before his rise to the throne, and the marriage was apparently childless. The contemporary historian Leo the Deacon remarks that she excelled in both beauty and wisdom.


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: The Byzantine Empire was at war with its eastern neighbors, the various autonomous and semi-autonomous emirates emerging from the break-up of the Abbasid Caliphate. The most prominent among them was the Hamdanid Emirate of Aleppo, under Sayf al-Dawla. Armenia served as the borderland between the two Empires, and Tzimiskes successfully defended his province. He and his troops joined the main part of the army, which was campaigning under the command of Nikephoros Phokas.


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: By 962 the Hamdanids had sued for peace with favorable terms for the Byzantines, securing the eastern border of the Empire for some years. Tzimiskes distinguished himself during the war both at the side of his uncle and at leading parts of the army to battle under his personal command, as in the Battle of Raban in 958. He was rather popular with his troops and gained a reputation for taking the initiative during battles, turning their course.


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: On the death of Emperor Romanos II in 963, Tzimiskes urged his uncle to seize the throne. After helping Nikephoros to the throne and continuing to defend the Empire's eastern provinces, Tzimiskes was deprived of his command by an intrigue, for which he retaliated by conspiring with Nikephoros' wife Theophano and a number of disgruntled leading generals (Michael Bourtzes and Leo Balantes) to assassinate Nikephoros.


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: After his coronation in December 969, Tzimiskes dispatched his brother-in-law Bardas Skleros to subdue a rebellion by Bardas Phokas, a cousin of Tzimiskes who aspired to succeed their uncle as emperor. To solidify his position, Tzimiskes married Theodora, a daughter of Emperor Constantine VII. He proceeded to justify his usurpation by repelling the foreign invaders of the Empire. The tributary of Aleppo was soon assured under the Treaty of Safar.


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: In a series of campaigns against the Kievan Rus' encroachment on the Lower Danube in 970–971, he drove the enemy out of Thrace in the Battle of Arcadiopolis, crossed Mt. Haemus, and besieged the fortress of Dorostolon (Silistra) on the Danube for sixty-five days, where after several hard-fought battles he defeated Great Prince Sviatoslav I of Rus'. Tzimiskes and Sviatoslav ended up negotiating a truce, in which weaponry, armor and provisions were exchanged for the famished Rus' departure.


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: On his return to Constantinople, Tzimiskes celebrated a triumph, expanded the Church of Christ of the Chalke as thanksgiving, divested the captive Bulgarian Emperor Boris II of the Imperial symbols, and proclaimed Bulgaria annexed. He further secured his northern frontier by transplanting to Thrace some colonies of the Paulicians, whom he suspected of sympathising with their Muslim neighbours in the east.


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: In 972, Tzimiskes turned against the Abbasid Empire and its vassals, beginning with an invasion of Upper Mesopotamia. A second campaign, in 975, was aimed at Syria, where his forces took Emesa, Heliopolis, Damascus, Tiberias, Nazareth, Caesarea, Sidon, Beirut, Byblos, and Tripoli, but failed to take Jerusalem.


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: Tzimiskes died suddenly in 976 returning from his second campaign against the Abbasids and was buried in the Church of Christ Chalkites, which he had rebuilt. Several sources state that the Imperial chamberlain Basil Lekapenos poisoned the Emperor to prevent him from stripping Lekapenos of his ill-gotten lands and riches.Tzimiskes left all his own personal wealth to the poor and the sick. He was succeeded by his ward and nephew, Basil II, who had been nominal co-emperor since 960.


title: John I Tzimiskes

text: Tsimiski Street, the main commercial road in the center of Thessaloniki, is named after him. Çemişgezek in the Tunceli Province, modern day Turkey, is named after him, as he was born there.


title: Lang Park

text: Lang Park, also known as Brisbane Football Stadium, by the sponsored name Suncorp Stadium, and nicknamed: 'The Cauldron', is a multi-purpose stadium in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, located in the suburb of Milton. The current facility comprises a three-tiered rectangular sporting stadium with a capacity of 52,500 people. The traditional home of rugby league in Brisbane, the modern stadium is also now used for rugby union and soccer and has a rectangular playing field of . The stadium's major tenants are the Brisbane Broncos, Queensland Maroons and Queensland Reds.


title: Lang Park

text: Lang Park was established in 1914, on the site of the former North Brisbane Cemetery, and in its early days was home to a number of different sports, including cycling, athletics, and soccer. The lease of the park was taken over by the Brisbane Rugby League in 1957 and it became the home of the game in Queensland (remaining so to this day). It has also been the home ground of major rugby union and soccer matches in Queensland since its modern redevelopment, including the Queensland Reds and the Brisbane Roar, and some Wallabies and Socceroos matches. It hosted the 2008 and 2017 Rugby League World Cup Finals, and the 2021 NRL Grand Final. In addition to this, the ground hosted Rugby World Cup quarter finals and two Super Rugby grand finals, with the Queensland Reds winning on both occasions. The venue will host several matches for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup including the third-place match as well as the soccer tournament at the 2032 Summer Olympics, including the gold medal matches in both the men's and women's events.


title: Lang Park

text: The site of Lang Park was originally the North Brisbane Cemetery, and until 1875 was Brisbane's primary cemetery. By 1911 the area was heavily populated, so the Paddington Cemeteries Act (1911) was introduced and the site was redeveloped as a recreational site. In 1914 it was fenced off and named Lang Park after John Dunmore Lang.


title: Lang Park

text: The ground was leased by the Queensland Amateur Athletics Association (QAAA) in the 1920s. In 1935, the Queensland Soccer Council (QSC) became a sub-tenant of the QAAA, with a view to using it as the home ground for Brisbane soccer fixtures (leaving its former home, the Brisbane Cricket Ground). The Latrobe Soccer Club, in turn, became a sub-tenant of the QSC, using the ground for its home games (see image below).


title: Lang Park

text: However, by 1937, the QSC was considering sub-leasing Lang Park to "another code of football" (most likely Western Suburbs Rugby League) as it "was not satisfied with the financial returns ... under the sub-lease to the Latrobe-Milton club". Latrobe in turn responded that "'If no action Is taken to introduce the Ipswich clubs into the Brisbane competition this' season ... the Latrobe-Milton Club cannot accept an increase in rental for Lang Park. Give us competition play with Ipswich and my club will hold the ground as headquarters for the code."


title: Lang Park

text: On 11 February 1950, the official opening of the Lang Park Police Citizens Youth Club took place and youth activities commenced because of the concerns with the increase of juvenile delinquency. Activities such as boxing, wrestling, basketball and gymnastics all occur at these premises to this day.


title: Lang Park

text: Contemporaneous records are scant, but it appears the QSC did not renew the lease the ground after the intervening World War II. In 1953 the Brisbane Rugby League (BRL) amalgamated with the Queensland Rugby League (QRL). QRL secretary Ron McAullife negotiated a 21-year lease of Lang Park from the Brisbane City Council in order to give the QRL a financially viable base of operations. The park had only the most basic facilities, and the QRL contributed £17,000 to its development. Lang Park hosted its first game of first grade rugby league during the 1930s, with regular BRL games commencing there in 1955. In 1958 it hosted its first Brisbane rugby league grand final in which Brothers defeated Valleys 22 points to 7. A record crowd of 19,824 saw Northern Suburbs defeat Fortitude Valley at Lang Park in the BRL grand final in September 1961.


title: Lang Park

text: In the 1960s, Fonda Metassa famously burst from the back of an ambulance to return to the field after being carted off injured in a match for Norths against Redcliffe. As the ground was used increasingly by the QRL, it became no longer viable for use as a public recreation facility due to spoilage of the running track. In 1962 the Lang Park Trust was created under an act of Parliament. This allowed for the construction of the Frank Burke Stand (1962), Ron McAuliffe Stand (1975) and the Western Grandstand (1994). The Trust had on its board one member from the Queensland Government, one member from the Brisbane City Council, two members from the Queensland Rugby League and one member from the Brisbane Rugby League.


title: Lang Park

text: From the 1960s, Lang Park hosted interstate and international rugby league, including the inaugural State of Origin match. Up until 1972, it was the home ground of the Western Suburbs Panthers.


title: Lang Park

text: In 1988, the Brisbane Broncos entered the NSWRL Premiership along with the Gold Coast Chargers and the Newcastle Knights. The Broncos played out of Lang Park from 1988 until 1992 when they moved to the 60,000 capacity ANZ Stadium, the stadium for the 1982 Commonwealth Games. The move occurred due to a dispute over the Broncos sponsor, Power's Brewery, being a competitor of the QRL's sponsor XXXX.


title: Lang Park

text: In 1995, professional rugby league returned to the ground when the South Queensland Crushers entered the newly formed Australian Rugby League premiership. The Crushers had a fairly average first season, winning six of 22 games and finishing 16th out of 20. Their second season in 1996, began with promise. The team won their first two games and after losing round 3, led big brother Brisbane 8-6 at half time in front of their biggest ever home crowd, 34,263. But the Broncos scored 4 tries in the second half to see the Crushers lose. They only won two more games that year (rounds 13 & 14) and received the wooden spoon, a terrible ending to a season starting with so much promise. Their final season, 1997, saw them compete in the ARL's half of 1997's split competition and they won another wooden spoon, finishing 12th of 12. They were liquidated at the end of 1997 after merger talks with the Gold Coast Chargers broke down.


title: Lang Park

text: In 1994, the stadium's name was changed to Suncorp Stadium, when naming sponsorship was attained by Queensland financial institution, Suncorp. The venue is currently managed by AEG Ogden. On 25 May 1997, the 1996/1997 National Soccer League Grand final was played in front of then a capacity crowd of 40,446, where the Brisbane Strikers FC defeated Sydney United FC 2–0.


title: Lang Park

text: In the late 1990s, it was decided that Brisbane needed a state of the art rectangular stadium. Suncorp Stadium was chosen as the site. The $280 million redevelopment commenced in July 2001 after Game One of the 2001 State of Origin series. The redevelopment was completed in time for the match between the Brisbane Broncos and Newcastle Knights on 1 June 2003; Brisbane's first game at Suncorp Stadium since 1996.


title: Lang Park

text: The stadium is now a 52,500 state of the art all-seater rectangular stadium, a far cry from the former Lang Park oval with two grandstands set back from a perimeter road. The only remaining stand from before the redevelopment is the Western Grandstand. The extension of the facility resulted in the demolition of a number of buildings along Milton Road, including the former Brisbane City Council trolley-bus depot.


title: Lang Park

text: During their relocating year, the Broncos only recorded one win at the venue, against the Sydney Roosters in Round 16, 2003, unlike one loss at their previous home, ANZ Stadium in Round 5, 2003, against the New Zealand Warriors.


title: Lang Park

text: Following its redevelopment, questions were raised about the standard of the surface, which was soft underfoot and sandy and was blamed for a spate of injuries to rugby league players using it (temporarily earning the stadium the nickname "Sandcorp Stadium" ). Prior to the redevelopment, the stadium was known as "The Cauldron", and Queensland fans developed a reputation for vocal support of their teams, adding to this mythology.


title: Lang Park

text: Suncorp Stadium suffered significant damage during the 2010–2011 Queensland floods with the entire playing field being covered by flood water. An electrical fire started in a transformer room due to water ingress, however there was no major damage from the fire. Brisbane Roar's match with Wellington Phoenix, originally scheduled for the weekend of 14–16 January, was postponed until 26 January, and the remaining Brisbane Roar home matches were moved to Skilled Park on the Gold Coast. Suncorp Stadium was out of action until late February, but restored just in time for the commencement of the 2011 NRL season. Temporary change rooms were set up as the original change rooms were damaged as a result of the floods. The original change rooms were restored in time for the commencement of the 2012 NRL season.


title: Lang Park

text: In September 2016, it was announced that the video screens, originally installed in 2003, would be replaced. Construction started on the new video screens in March 2017 and was finished in early May 2017 in time for an NRL double header.


title: Lang Park

text: Although the stadium has been the traditional home of rugby league in Queensland, it has also become the state's premier venue for soccer, as well as rugby union. The re-developed Suncorp Stadium first hosted rugby union games at the 2003 Rugby World Cup and in 2005, the stadium became the new home of the Queensland Reds Super Rugby team when they moved from their former home at Ballymore Stadium. This move caused some disquiet amongst rugby traditionalists, however was accepted by Queensland Rugby Union CEO Theo Psaros, who said that "our hearts may be at Ballymore but our heads say it's time to move.". The year before the Reds' move, the newly established football team Queensland Roar of the A-League also elected to play their home games at Suncorp Stadium.


title: Lang Park

text: New Zealand rugby journalist Wynne Gray called Suncorp Stadium perhaps the best rugby stadium in the world. "It is so intimate you can hear the smack of bodies, the boot on leather, you feel the power and rhythm of the games."


title: Lang Park

text: The stadium has also been favourably compared to Cardiff's Millennium Stadium and London's Twickenham Stadium.


title: Lang Park

text: On 29 July 2006, the Bledisloe Cup clash between the Wallabies and the All Blacks returned to Brisbane for the first time in over a decade for the 2006 Tri Nations Series. Though Australia narrowly lost the match, the game saw a new ground record set.


title: Lang Park

text: A month later on 7 October the stadium hosted a 1–1 friendly soccer game between Australia and Paraguay in which Tony Vidmar, Stan Lazaridis, Zeljko Kalac and goal scorer Tony Popovic all retired from international football.


title: Lang Park

text: On 8 November 2006, a crowd of 44,358 at Suncorp Stadium saw the Great Britain national rugby league team play against Australia for the last time.


title: Lang Park

text: On Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 December, Suncorp Stadium hosted its first music concert since the 1980s and the stadium's redevelopment when Robbie Williams performed in front of two 52,413 sell-out crowds during his "Close Encounters" tour of Australia, and was the venue for the U2 360 tour in December 2010. That same month the stadium hosted Bon Jovi as part of The Circle Tour.


title: Lang Park

text: Suncorp Stadium was also the site of the 2011 A-League Grand Final, drawing a crowd of over 50,000 for the climactic football event. The match was one of the dramatic in A-League history, with the Brisbane Roar scoring two goals in the last five minutes to level the scores with the Central Coast Mariners after several hundred home supporters had left the stadium early, many returning after hearing the stadium erupt while waiting for the train. The Roar went on to win 4–2 in the penalty shootout, making for an incredible victory.


title: Lang Park

text: American Singer-Songwriter Taylor Swift played at Suncorp Stadium for her Red Tour on 7 December 2013.


title: Lang Park

text: In 2019, Suncorp Stadium hosted the NRL's inaugural Magic Round, in which all eight matches in a single round are played at the one venue.


title: Lang Park

text: In 2020, the Melbourne Storm played their "home" finals at the venue, as it was not possible for the team to play them at its regular home ground, AAMI Park, due to the state of Victoria being locked down during the state's second wave of coronavirus infections.


title: Lang Park

text: On 26 June 2021, the Queensland Maroons played at home against the New South Wales Blues in the State of Origin series. Queensland lost the game 26-0, and henceforth the series.


title: Lang Park

text: Due to a COVID-19 lockdown in New South Wales, which began on 26 June 2021 and was still in effect into October, the stadium hosted the 2021 NRL Grand Final on 3 October 2021. This was the second time that a rugby league premiership Grand Final was played outside of Sydney, following the 1997 Super League Grand Final.


title: Lang Park

text: In the 1980s, Brisbane rugby league icon Wally Lewis became known as "The Emperor of Lang Park" after his performances in State of Origin matches played at the ground. Brisbane-based beer XXXX, which is brewed at the nearby Castlemaine Brewery, ran a television advertisement celebrating this title in song:


title: Lang Park

text: In 2006, Queensland Minister for Sport, Tom Barton introduced the Stadium's Sports Media Hall of Fame which honours the achievements of media representatives who have covered the two major football codes (Rugby league and Rugby union) played at this historic ground over the past 40 years. So far, there are five inductees: rugby league commentator George Lovejoy, rugby league journalists Jack Reardon and Steve Ricketts, Gerry Collins and Frank O'Callaghan.


title: Lang Park

text: In 2009, as part of the Q150 celebrations, Suncorp Stadium (Lang Park) was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for its role as a "structure and engineering feat".


title: Lang Park

text: Controversially, the redevelopment was the first major sporting facility in Australia with no car parking, primarily due to concerns with traffic congestion in the surrounding residential neighbourhood. Instead, the stadium's is surrounded by pubs, restaurants, cafes, bars and the XXXX brewery. This together with dedicated pedestrian links to Milton railway station and Brisbane CBD adds to the match day experience and is seen as a model for new stadiums and large entertainment venues. The stadium redevelopment has been the catalyst for the Barracks urban renewal development at Petrie Terrace midway along the dedicated pedestrian link to the CBD.


title: Lang Park

text: On Saturday, 16 June 2011, The Weekend Australian revealed that Suncorp Stadium was in danger of either losing the hosting rights to all Queensland based NRL finals matches to Sydney, or having its capacity limited to 25,000 seats, due to a condition included in the legislation regarding the Stadium's redevelopment that only 24 'special events' (i.e. with attendance in excess of 25,000) a year can hosted at the venue. This number of special events was reached when the Brisbane Broncos faced the Manly Sea Eagles in Round 26 of the 2011 NRL Telstra Premiership Season. On 6 September 2011, legislation was passed to lift the crowd capacity limit to 35,000 for those 24 events, enabling the Broncos to host finals matches should they progress that far.


title: Lang Park

text: It also hosted three non Australia matches. Incidentally, they were all England matches. The first was a 1975 Rugby League World Cup match against Wales on 10 June 1975 with 6,000 in attendance and lost 12 - 7. The second was a 2008 Rugby League World Cup match against New Zealand on 15 November 2008 with 26,659 in attendance and lost 32 - 22. The third and final to date was a 2014 Four Nations match between against Samoa with 47,813 in attendance and was a double header which was followed by the Australia New Zealand match. England won 32 - 26.


title: Lang Park

text: Suncorp Stadium will host two matches of the 2017 Rugby League World Cup. The venue will play host to the first semi-final on 24 November and the tournament final on 2 December.


title: Lang Park

text: Suncorp Stadium was the host of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Jeff Horn fight for the WBO welterweight championship with 51,052 people in attendance.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: Moulin Rouge is a 1952 British drama film, written and directed by John Huston, based on the 1950 novel by Pierre La Mure, and produced by John and James Woolf. The film follows artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 19th-century Paris's bohemian subculture in and around the Moulin Rouge, a burlesque palace. The film was screened at the 14th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Lion.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: The film stars José Ferrer (Toulouse-Lautrec), Zsa Zsa Gabor (Jane Avril), Suzanne Flon, Eric Pohlmann, Colette Marchand, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Katherine Kath, Theodore Bikel, and Muriel Smith.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: In 1890 Paris crowds pour into the Moulin Rouge nightclub as artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec finishes a bottle of cognac while sketching the club's dancers. The club's regulars arrive: singer Jane Avril teases Henri charmingly, dancers La Goulue and Aicha fight, and owner Maurice Joyant offers Henri free drinks for a month in exchange for painting a promotional poster. At closing time, Henri waits for the crowds to disperse before standing to reveal his four-foot six-inch stature. As he walks to his Montmartre apartment, he recalls the events that led to his disfigurement.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: In flashbacks it is revealed that Henri was a bright, happy child, cherished by his parents, the fabulously wealthy Count and Countess de Toulouse-Lautrec. But as a boy Lautrec fell down a flight of stairs and his legs failed to heal because of a genetic weakness, likely resulting from his parents being first cousins. His legs stunted and pained, Henri loses himself in his art, while his father leaves his mother to ensure that they have no more children. As a young adult, Henri proposes to the woman he loves but, when she tells him that no woman will ever love him, he leaves his childhood home in despair to begin a new life as a painter in Paris.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: Back in the present, street walker Marie Charlet begs Henri to rescue her from police sergeant Patou. Henri wards off the policeman by pretending to be her escort, after which she insists on following him home. There, she acknowledges his disability with complete dispassion and although he is at first angry, Lautrec is impressed by her lack of judgement of his condition. He allows her to stay and comes to realize that the poverty and brutality of her childhood have made her cruel, ignorant and sly but also free of society's hypocrisy. Within days, he is buying her gifts and singing as he paints, until Marie takes his money and stays out all night.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: Henri waits in agony for her return, but when she finally does he tells her to leave at once. Realizing he loves her, Marie vows to stay and love him back. Although they fight constantly and he knows he can't trust her, Henri is unable to break with her. A final battle breaks out when Marie demands to be paid for posing for a portrait and flies into a rage when she thinks the portrait is unflattering. By morning, she begs him to take her back, but he refuses. He begins drinking himself to death until his landlady calls his mother, who urges him to save his health by finding Marie.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: Henri searches Marie's working-class neighborhood, finally discovering her at a café, blind drunk and sobbing. Marie reveals that she stayed with him only to procure money for her boyfriend, who has dumped her. When she adds that his touch made her sick, Henri returns to his apartment, and turns on the gas vents. As he sits waiting to die, he is suddenly inspired to finish his Moulin Rouge poster and, brush in hand, turns the gas vents off and opens the windows. Having passed through the crisis, he asks Sergeant Patou to secretly give Marie enough money to lift her out of her abject misery.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: The next day, Henri brings the poster to the dance hall and, though the style is unusual, Maurice accepts it. Henri works for days at the lithographers, blending his own inks to perfect the vivid colors. When he finishes the poster, which shows a woman dancing with her frilly panties exposed, it becomes an instant sensation and the Moulin Rouge opens to high society. His father denounces Henri for the "pornographic" work. Over the next ten years, Henri records the Parisian demimonde in brilliant paintings. His irascibility causes him to fight constantly with other painters but his broker loyally fights for his art to be accepted. By 1900 he is famous, but still terribly lonely.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: One morning he sees an elegant young woman standing at the edge of Pont Alexandre III over the Seine River. Thinking she might be suicidal, he stops to talk to her. She tells him she isn't going to jump and throws a key into the water. Days later, Jane Avril goes shopping with Henri, where the young woman from the bridge is modeling gowns at a dress shop. She is Myriamme, Jane's friend who, unlike Jane, lives on her own earnings and not the patronage of rich lovers. Myriamme is a great admirer of Henri's paintings, and Henri is shocked to discover that she bought the portrait of Marie Charlet years before in a flea market.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: Myriamme is Marie's opposite: principled, kind and cultured. She reveals to Henri that the key she threw into the water belonged to a wealthy and dashing man, Marcel de la Voisier, who asked her to be his mistress, but not his wife. While Henri continues to bitterly decry the possibility of true love, he falls in love with Myriamme. One night the two see dancer La Goulue on the street drunkenly insisting that she was once a star. Henri realizes that the Moulin Rouge has become a respectable establishment and is no longer the home for misfits.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: Myriamme informs Henri that Marcel has finally asked her to marry him. Certain she loves the more handsome man, he bitingly congratulates her for trapping Marcel. Myriamme asks Henri if he loves her, but, believing that she is only trying to spare his feelings, he lies and tells her he does not. The next day Henri receives a letter from Myriamme telling him that she loves him, not Marcel, but she believes Henri's bitterness over Marie has poisoned any chance for them to be happy together. Rushing to Myriamme's apartment, Henri finds she has left to marry Marcel. A year later, while sitting in a sleazy dive drinking relentlessly, Henri obsessively reads Myriamme's note. Patou, now an inspector, is called to help him. Once home, in a state of delirium tremens, Henri hallucinates that he sees cockroaches, and in trying to drive them away, accidentally falls down a flight of stairs.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: Near death, Henri is brought to his family's chateau. After a priest reads the last rites, his father tearfully informs Henri that he is to be the first living artist to be shown in the Louvre, and begs for forgiveness. Dying, Henri turns his head and smiles as phantasmal characters from his Moulin Rouge paintings, including Jane Avril, dance into the room to bid him goodbye.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: In the film, Ferrer plays both Henri and his father, the Comte Alphonse de Toulouse-Lautrec. To transform Ferrer into Henri required the use of platforms and concealed pits as well as special camera angles, makeup and costumes. Short body doubles were also used. In addition, Ferrer used a set of knee-pads of his own design allowing him to walk on his knees . He received high praise not only for his performance, but for his willingness to have his legs strapped in such a manner simply to play a role.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: It was reported that John Huston asked cinematographer Oswald Morris to render the color scheme of the film to look "as if Toulouse-Lautrec had directed it". "Moulin Rouge" was shot in three-strip Technicolor. The Technicolor projection print is created by dye transfer from three primary-color gelatin matrices. This permits great flexibility in controlling the density, contrast, and saturation of the print. Huston asked Technicolor for a subdued palette, rather than the sometimes-gaudy colors "glorious Technicolor" was famous for. Technicolor was reportedly reluctant to do this.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: The film was shot at Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Surrey, England, and on location in London and Paris.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: During its first year of release it earned £205,453 in UK cinemas and grossed $9 million at the North American box office.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: Ferrer received 40 percent of the proceeds from the film as well as other rights. This remuneration gave rise to a prominent U.S. Second Circuit tax case, "Commissioner v. Ferrer" (1962), in which Ferrer argued that he was taxed too much.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: The film was not nominated for its color cinematography, which many critics found remarkable. Leonard Maltin, in his annual Movie and Video Guide declared: "If you can't catch this in color, skip it."


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: In an interview shortly after his successful film version of "Cabaret" opened, Bob Fosse acknowledged John Huston's filming of the can-can in "Moulin Rouge" as being very influential on his own film style.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: The film was nominated for inclusion on the American Film Institute list of 100 Greatest Film Scores, but was not included on the final list.


title: Moulin Rouge (1952 film)

text: The film was digitally restored by FotoKem for Blu-ray debut. Frame-by-frame digital restoration was done by Prasad Corporation removing dirt, tears, scratches and other defects. In April 2019, a restored version of the film from The Film Foundation, Park Circus, Romulus Films, and MGM was selected to be shown in the Cannes Classics section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Love On Top

text: "Love On Top" is a song recorded by American singer Beyoncé for her fourth studio album "4" (2011). Inspired by her state of mind while playing Etta James in the 2008 musical biopic "Cadillac Records", Beyoncé wrote the song alongside Terius Nash and Shea Taylor; its production was handled by Taylor and Beyoncé. A throw-back to 1980s music, the uptempo R&B song exhibits style similar to that of Stevie Wonder, Huey Lewis, Whitney Houston and The Jackson 5, among others. While incorporating four key changes, Beyoncé adopts a high range when repeating the song's chorus towards the end of the song. She sings about a person whom she can always call, even after facing grief and hard work, finally earning their love and respect. The song changes key several times and ends in the key of E Major.


title: Love On Top

text: The song's musical composition, as well as Beyoncé's vocals and versatility, positively surprised critics. Beyoncé sang "Love On Top" live at 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, announcing her pregnancy at the end of her performance. This caused the upsurge of the song on several charts worldwide. It reached the top ten in Hungary, and the top twenty in Australia, Italy, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It also debuted and peaked at number 20 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, thus becoming the second highest debut of Beyoncé's career as a solo artist. "Love On Top" remained at number one on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for seven consecutive weeks, and has sold over one million copies. Beyoncé won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B Performance for "Love On Top" at the 55th ceremony.


title: Love On Top

text: Mainly inspired by the work of the American band New Edition, the accompanying music video for "Love On Top" shows Beyoncé along with five male dancers, performing choreographed moves in a penthouse studio in New York City overlooking the Hudson River towards New Jersey. Critics generally commended the simplicity of the video, the wardrobe changes with every key change, and Beyoncé's youthful exuberance throughout the clip. The song was part of the singer's set lists on the residency shows 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé (2011) and (2012), as well as The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour (2013–14) and The Formation World Tour (2016).


title: Love On Top

text: "Love On Top" was written by Beyoncé, Terius Nash and Shea Taylor while production was handled by Beyoncé and Taylor. From June 16 to June 27, 2011, the songs from "4" were available to listen to in full each day on Beyoncé's official website, paired with its accompanying photo spread from the album packaging and a quote. On June 26, 2011, "Love On Top" was the eighth song to be chosen. The quote found Beyoncé elaborating on the song's inspiration:


title: Love On Top

text: "When I played Etta James [in the 2008 musical biopic, "Cadillac Records"] it was the most I'd learned about myself until the recording of this album. When I went into the studio I used the same passion, honesty, and approach with my vocals I channeled as Etta James. It does not sound like the vocals on my past albums. It's a lot rawer. It comes from a deep place."


title: Love On Top

text: Beyoncé, who has covered "At Last" which is a song originally recorded by James, portrayed the artist in the 2008 musical biopic, "Cadillac Records" and won critical acclaim for her portrayal. She told "Billboard" magazine: "I realized that Etta James was so unapologetic, bold and strong that playing her was a big risk for me. It gave me the confidence and the push to challenge myself a little more with my music." "Love On Top" impacted Urban radio in the United States on January 10, 2012, as the fourth single from the album in that country.


title: Love On Top

text: "Love On Top" is an up-tempo R&B and disco song viewed as a modern take on old school music. It also exhibits elements of retro-soul music, retro-pop, 1980s pop music, funk music, jazz, and 1970s classic disco music, as stated by Joanne Dorken of MTV UK, Cameron Adams of the "Herald Sun" and Thomas Conner of "Chicago Sun-Times". According to "Slant Magazine" Eric Henderson, "Love On Top" is a "bright, breezy tribute to the freshness of mid-[19]80s, pre-new-jack-FM R&B reminiscent of Whitney Houston and Anita Baker." He also said the song was the "perfect and totally inverted fraternal twin" of another song on "4", being "Rather Die Young". "Love On Top"s retro elements are further illustrated by its use of finger snaps, a "distorted" bass groove, and a melding of horns as well as sweet backing harmonies, especially in the bridge and the chorus of the song. It is instrumentally complete with a thumping bassline, synthesizers, tribal drums, an electric piano, a guitar, a peppy saxophone, and some backing vocals. Rich Juzwiak of "The Village Voice" compared "Love On Top" to Raydio's "You Can't Change That" (1979) and New Edition's "Mr. Telephone Man" (1984). Priya Elan of "NME" noted that "Love On Top" echoes Janet Jackson's "Whoops Now" (1995), Lionel Richie's "Dancing on the Ceiling" (1986) and the theme from "My Two Dads".


title: Love On Top

text: According to the digital sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by EMI Music Publishing, "Love On Top" is mainly written in the key of C major with a tempo of 99.2 beats per minute. Beyoncé's vocal range in the song spans from the low note of G to the high note of B. "Love On Top" is set as "both a sweet love song and an expression of girl power" as stated by Georgette Cline of AOL Music. Genevieve Koski of "The A.V. Club" and David Amidon of PopMatters noted that "Love On Top" features "mature lyrics" alongside Beyoncé "sounding vocally giddy and aggressive while portraying the message." Lyrically, the song finds Beyoncé as the female protagonist expressing the happiness she feels to have her love interest in her life. "The languid, synth-soul smoocher" allows for an "enjoyably euphoric tone" before she chimes in with "Bring the beat in!", introducing "a mid-album interlude of mid-[19]80s pop", as stated by Andy Gill of "The Independent" as well as Hamish MacBain of "NME".


title: Love On Top

text: Rich Juzwiak noted that Beyoncé "ecstatically and hyperactively" changes keys four times during the song. As stated by Scott Shetler of PopCrush, she constantly sings praises of her love interest in the first verse where she also seemingly sends him subtle digs as he did not give her his full attention in the past, this being illustrated in lyrics such as, "after fighting through my fears [...] finally you've put me first." The chorus, complemented with sweet backing harmonies, then arrives, with Beyoncé chanting, "Baby it's you, you're the one I love / You're the one I need / You're the only one I see / Come on baby it's you / You're the one that gives your all / You're the one I can always call / When I need you make everything stop / Finally you put my love on top." The chorus carries the final two minutes of the song through four key changes, proceeding to D major, then to D major, E major and finally to E major. This was highlighted by Henderson who wrote that "the spirit carries both her and the song into a Stevie Wonder-reminiscent climax of continually rising key changes." In this way, the word "baby" is said about 24 times throughout the song. As soon as the synthesizers drop out, the song fades out almost instantaneously.


title: Love On Top

text: "Love On Top" was highly acclaimed by critics. Rich Juzwiak of "The Village Voice" complimented its "easy listening/easier dancing boogie vibe". Genevieve Koski of "The A.V. Club" said "Love On Top" had an up-tempo nature, saying that it was possibly the only "first-listen earworm" on the album with its "breezy, retro-soul style." Matthew Horton of BBC joked about the climax of the song, stating that the album "4" "was named after the four key changes in the final, teetering chorus of 'Love on Top' to ram the point home." Greg Kot of the "Chicago Tribune" commended the song for putting a "bounce" in Beyoncé's step. Similarly, Matthew Perpetua of "Rolling Stone" named "Love On Top" "a blast" as Beyoncé creates a modern take on old-school Whitney Houston. Hamish MacBain of "NME" favored the song's up-tempo style, stating that it was much needed after the "ballad-heavy" first half of the album. Priya Elan of the same publication commented that it has "100 watt smile lyrics". Stating that "Love On Top" is reminiscent of 1980s R&B, Erika Ramirez of "Billboard" magazine complimented the song as a "Halcyon love song, perfect to be whisked away to". Spence D. of IGN commented that Beyoncé's "cheery disposition" and the "brash horns" will remind listeners of "damn good" mid-1980s R&B can be. While including the song as a "must hear" from the album, Andy Gill of "The Independent" named "Love On Top" as "a small footnote to Stevie Wonder's innovatory genius." Alexis Petridis of "The Guardian" praised Beyoncé's vocals and called "Love On Top" a "well-written" song.


title: Love On Top

text: Eric Henderson of "Slant Magazine" also gave "Love On Top" a positive review, favoring its "infectious upbeat spirit" and comparing it to the styling of Stevie Wonder, Anita Baker and Whitney Houston. He also complimented the fact that the various key changes throughout the song "force Beyoncé out of her scold range and into some winningly girlish soprano whoops." Similarly, Joey Guerra of the "Houston Chronicle" commented that "Love On Top" is a "bouncy jam" which finds Beyoncé in "feel-good diva mode". He added that it might have turned up on early albums from Natalie Cole, Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey. Guerra concluded that Beyoncé "rarely has sounded so charming, even as she soars through several key changes." Mikael Wood of "Spin" magazine noted that the song "imagines a perfect genetic splice" of Whitney Houston's eponymous debut album and Michael Jackson's "Off the Wall". Ricky Schweitzer of One Thirty BPM stated that "Love On Top" is instantaneously reminiscent of Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson and Stevie Wonder, and favored Beyoncé's numerous key changes, writing:


title: Love On Top

text: 'Love On Top' employs a similar pacing [to 'Party'], though tonally, this track reminds one more immediately of Michael and Janet Jackson, as well as Stevie Wonder. This effervescent throwback escapes corniness by reveling in its pure joy and as such, it becomes one of the highlights of the album. The numerous key changes that flood the end of the song could seem masturbatory, but Beyoncé is not proving that she can sing as high as Mariah [Carey] or Whitney [Houston] because we already trust her to. It is energy and not ego that drives the constantly rising progression.


title: Love On Top

text: Becky Bain of the website Idolator viewed "Love On Top" as a "joyful tune that doubles as a throwback to a simpler time" and added that Beyoncé's energy is "infectious". Conrad Tao of Sputnikmusic very much liked "Love On Top", writing: "[...] as she forces herself into a rarely used high range, she sets for a perfect catharsis for the burgeoning sexual passions of the album's first two thirds", and describing the outcome as "absolutely magnificent". Melinda Newman of HitFix commented "the soulful, exuberant, mid-tempo finger snapper, 'Love on Top' is deliciously sunny and sweet." James Reed of "The Boston Globe" wrote that "Love On Top" sounds "like the pretty young thing of Michael Jackson's 'P.Y.T.' grew up to make a sequel to that 1983 hit." Similarly, Joanne Dorken of MTV UK who described "Love On Top" as "scream[ing] 'classic disco', catchy, [being] more uptempo and differing from the rest of the album", concluded that the song shows Beyoncé's versatility and that it is "very Jackson 5". Ben Cardew of "Music Week" stated that "Love On Top" is summery and "laidback, rather than massively immediate". However, he added that it proves to be a grower as it "ratchets up the key changes on the final third", further writing that Beyoncé's voice sounds "particularly impressive". A mixed review came from Adam Markovitz of "Entertainment Weekly", who compared Beyoncé's work on "Love On Top" to that of past idols such as Luther Vandross and Diana Ross, but felt the tone overshadowed her style, stating "she gets lost in her idols' polyester-swathed shadows." Jon Caramanica of "The New York Times" noted that the song was "slinky but nowhere near sexy" adding that it sounds like a song young Brandy Norwood would release.


title: Love On Top

text: James Montgomery of MTV News placed "Love On Top" at number nine on his list of the 25 Best Songs Of 2011. He called it "a throwback jam" to Beyoncé's older R&B material, stating that "[it's] big, bold, brassy and blissed-out, [and] it represents everything B was going for on her "4" album". Montgomery also noted that the song was an "absolute lifesaver" and "as is the case with all of her best tunes, Beyoncé belts here". "Slant Magazine"s staff members listed "Love On Top" as the 24th best song of the year, with Eric Henderson commenting that "somewhere between ["4"'s] copious ballads and its few, hyperventilating dance tracks, Beyoncé strikes a perfect balance with this breezy midtempo tribute to the 1980s." On "The Village Voice"s Pazz & Jop critic year-end list in 2011, "Love On Top" was ranked at number 51. Additionally, Nick Murray of the same publication included the song on his list of 53 Great Songs From 2011.


title: Love On Top

text: "Love On Top" was named the greatest song of the decade (2010s) by "Harper's Bazaar", and the best song by a female artist of the decade by "Uproxx". In 2017, ShortList's Dave Fawbert listed "Love On Top" as containing "one of the greatest key changes in music history".


title: Love On Top

text: The song was nominated in the category for Viewer's Choice at the 2012 BET Awards and in the category for R&B/Hip-Hop Song at the 2012 Teen Choice Awards. Beyoncé won her 17th Grammy Award with Best Traditional R&B Performance for "Love On Top" at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards. At the 26th ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards in 2013, "Love On Top" received the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Song award.


title: Love On Top

text: For the week July 2, 2011, "Love On Top" debuted on the South Korea Gaon International Singles Chart at number 3, selling 89,942 digital downloads. The song remained at that position in its second and third week, selling 52,462 downloads and 42,261 downloads respectively. It charted inside the top ten positions of the chart for five consecutive weeks.


title: Love On Top

text: After Beyoncé's performance of "Love On Top" at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, the song was propelled into the top five positions of the US iTunes Store; its sales picked up by 221 percent. Despite not being a single at that time, it became the highest-charting song from "4" on the US iTunes Store. For the week ending September 10, 2011, "Love On Top" consequently debuted at number 135 on the US Hot Digital Songs chart, and charted at number 22 on the US Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart. The following week, the song soared number 10 on the Hot Digital Songs chart, selling 113,000 downloads; digital sales went up by 803%. This prompted the entry of "Love On Top" at number 20 on the Hot 100 chart. The Hot 100 debut of "Love On Top" became Beyoncé's second highest among her 29 solo career entries; only "Ring the Alarm" began at a higher position, at number 12 in 2006. It fell to number 70 on the Hot 100 chart issue dated September 24, 2011. "Love On Top" was certified 4× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on August 8, 2022. "Love On Top" passed one million digital copies in the U.S. in February 2013.


title: Love On Top

text: For the week September 17, 2011, "Love On Top" debuted at number 85 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. It moved to number 9 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart issue dated February 11, 2012, and became the third song from "4" to chart inside the top ten of that chart. For the week ending March 3, 2012, the song earned the Greatest Gainer/Airplay title as it lifted from number 4 to number 2 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart with 30 million audience impressions, which went up by 22%, according to Nielsen BDS. "Love On Top" topped the chart for the week ending March 10, 2012; it was Beyoncé's sixth song during her solo career to reach number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. It spent six consecutive weeks on the top of the chart. Before being sent for adds on any format on US radios, "Love On Top" debuted at number 36 on the BDS Urban AC National airplay chart issue dated October 29, 2011, having amassed 106 spins, including 55 in 7 days. According to Nielsen BDS, 18 Urban AC radio stations added the song to their playlists for that week ending. For the week ending March 3, 2012, it became Beyoncé's first number-one on the US Adult R&B Airplay chart.


title: Love On Top

text: Similarly owing to the live performance, "Love On Top" debuted at number 65 on the Canadian Hot 100 chart issue dated September 17, 2011. The song also entered at number 75 on the UK Singles Chart and at number 23 on the UK R&B Chart on September 4, 2011, It debuted at number 14 on the New Zealand Singles Chart the following day, and spent seven non-consecutive weeks on the chart. In Ireland, "Love On Top" made its debut at number 47 on September 8, 2011. The song also entered at number 40 on the Australian Singles Chart on September 12, 2011. The following week, it debuted at number 9 of the Australian Urban Singles Chart, and was the most added song to radios in Australia. "Love On Top" peaked at number 20 on the singles chart on November 6, 2011, and number 4 on the urban chart on October 17, 2011. Having spent 16 consecutive weeks on the Australian Singles Chart, the song was certified six-times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), denoting sales of 420,000 copies.


title: Love On Top

text: After having been announced as a single in the UK, "Love On Top" re-entered the UK Singles Chart at number 154 on November 13, 2011, and moved to number 87 the following week. It also moved from number 63 to number 38 on the UK R&B Chart. On December 4, 2011, "Love On Top" climbed from number 54 to number 28 on the UK Singles Chart and from 16 to number 7 on the UK R&B Chart, where the song has peaked. The following week, it moved to number 22 on the UK Singles Chart, where it remained until January 1, 2012. On January 8, 2012, "Love On Top" reached number 20, selling 15,660 digital copies and bringing its total sales to 120,648 copies. The single peaked at number 13 on the UK Singles Chart the following week. On June 9, 2015, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) certified "Love On Top" platinum, denoting sales of 600,000 copies in the country.


title: Love On Top

text: The music video for "Love On Top" was directed by Ed Burke and Beyoncé. A preview of the clip was shown on the Australian television program, "Sunday Night", on October 9, 2011. The visuals showed Beyoncé in a black leotard, stockings, high-top sneakers, and medal-adorned Czech military cap. Together with her five male dancers, they perform choreographed moves at Canoe Studios, a penthouse studio in West Chelsea overlooking New York City. The preview was inspired by the music video for "If It Isn't Love" by American band New Edition and was described as "stripped-down" by Tom Ayres of Digital Spy. The full video was initially supposed to be premiered on October 17, 2011, on Australia's "Today Show". However, the release date was pushed up a day and it was released on October 16, 2011, instead. That same day, Beyoncé posted the following statement regarding the video on her official website:


title: Love On Top

text: I am excited to give my Australian fans the World Premiere of 'Love On Top'! Thank you for the amazing response to the song at radio. I have worked very hard on this video, this song is special to me and I had an idea for the video based on some of my favorite male groups. I remember seeing videos from New Edition, The Jackson 5 and the Temptations, bands I love for their beautiful harmonies, and precise choreography and I always wanted to make a video and be part of a boy group myself. It was so much fun. I put my heart and soul into 'Love On Top' and I hope you love it.


title: Love On Top

text: After the release of the sneak peek, Michael Bivins of New Edition told Theybf.com, "When I saw Beyonce on the MTV awards in the sequined jacket this year and with the dancers in R&B group positions, I knew then she was showing love to NE! The video teaser was part two... the classic video 'If It Isn't Love' reference." After the release of the full video, Johnny Gill told "S2S" magazine that he considers "Love On Top"s video to be a tribute and that Beyoncé as well as her backup dancers did a great job of capturing New Edition's essence. In his opinion, that is why "she is one of the greatest living performers." He went on to say, "[The video] was so cool. There's no more Michael Jackson but I think she's a beast to begin with. It's such an honor to have someone who knew, and knows, her history and to be aware of where it all started."


title: Love On Top

text: Although the song is 4 minutes and 27 seconds long, the video is 3 minutes and 17 seconds long due to the omission of the second verse. Erika Ramirez of "Billboard" magazine and Melissa Maerz of "Entertainment Weekly" highlighted the fact that Beyoncé wears several different clothes including the dress that was worn during her performance at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards. The clip starts with a casually dressed Beyoncé moving in coordination with her male back-up dancers who are also wearing casual clothes and Nike Dunks. Wearing a black body suit with black hose, Beyoncé puts on a display of footwork before breaking into the song. About halfway through, the visuals suddenly switch to night as the singer lights up the space in various formal looks, including a gold pantsuit, white suit, and finally a tuxedo complete with coattails, top hat, and cane. The choreography from here resembles that of the 1960s male groups. The wardrobe changes in fact correspond with every key change, except the final one. The video ends with Beyoncé yelling "cut!" and the shot returns to them at rehearsal.


title: Love On Top

text: "Consequence of Sound"s Alex Young praised the simplicity of the concept adding that it costs "more money than your entire life fortune." That was echoed by Andrew Martin of "Prefix Magazine" who called the video "super-simplistic, albeit effective." A writer of "OK!" compared the video with Will Smiths work in "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" adding that Beyoncé "has gone back to video basics." A writer of "The Huffington Post" called the video a "fresh take on a New Edition classic" and concluded that it was a "lot more simple than it sounds." Lisa Potter of "Marie Claire" also praised the energy and Beyoncé's figure in the video, writing, "The pregnant superstar puts on another energetic performance during the video, showing off her fabulous figure in a skimpy black leotard complete with a military fetish cap and Isabel Marant sneakers, before changing into a series of tailored suits." Jenna Hally Rubenstein of MTV Buzzworthy wrote that the video was similar to Michael Jackson's "Dangerous" era adding, "While some might say the basic concept of Beyoncé's 'Love on Top' video is too straightforward, we actually think it's amazing – just let Beyoncé sing, dance, look fuhLAWless and wear a cute hat! What else do you people need?!" Maura Johnston of "The Village Voice" described the video as a direct homage to New Edition's "If It Isn't Love" but added that when the song's key changes start, "Beyoncé and her posse of backup dancers get a bit brassier and fancier". She further wrote that the video was something that Phil Collins "would be proud" of.


title: Love On Top

text: Comparing the video with works by Stevie Wonder, Matthew Perpetua of "Rolling Stone" wrote, "compared to the over-the-top sensory overload of 'Countdown, ' the 'Love on Top' clip is very simple and straightforward, with the singer performing with backup singers and dancers in a spare room. Still, she changes wardrobe with every key change as the song reaches its euphoric climax." Similarly, Leah Collins of "Dose" magazine wrote, "New jack swing dance moves and costume changes are pretty much the focus of this one. [...] Still, Beyonce reveals a talent we never knew she had: the ability to switch costumes every time she switches keys. (This, it turns out, is a good thing. That pantsless African dictator look in the first scene? Maybe we're the only ones, but we're not really feeling Idi Amin-chic this season.)" Georgette Cline of "The Boombox" found similarities between the video for "Love On Top" and the earlier videos that Beyoncé made with Destiny's Child while Sarah Anne Hughes of "The Washington Post" called the video fancy and an "obvious homage to New Edition's 'If It Isn't Love.'" A more mixed review was given by Amanda Dobbins of "New York" magazine who wrote that "The video will do nothing to silence Beyoncé plagiarism or baby bump conspiracy theorists; the first half borrows from an old New Edition video, and the entire thing was clearly filmed before her bump began to show." However, she added, "Still, Vulture salutes any artistic undertaking that requires a costume change with every key change." The video was nominated in the category for Video of the Year at the 2012 BET Awards and in the category for Best Female Video at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards. It won Best Dance Performance at the 2012 Soul Train Music Awards.


title: Love On Top

text: Beyoncé performed "Love On Top" live for the first time on August 14, 2011, during her residency show 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé held at Roseland Ballroom in New York City. Wearing a gold dress, she performed the song in front of 3,500 people, backed by her all-female band and her backing singers, the Mamas. For the performance, "Love On Top" was given an "uptempo overhaul" and eventually got everyone "moving to the catchy [synthesizers]", as stated by Mike Wass of Idolator. Wass also wrote that "Love On Top" was one of the highlights of the concert. Jon Caramanica of "The New York Times" gave Beyoncé critical acclaim, favoring performances of "underdog tracks" such as "Party" and "Love On Top". Jody Rosen of "Rolling Stone" also complimented Beyoncé's performance of the song, commending how she turned "the groovy 'Love on Top' into a vintage soul showcase, dropping on bended knee to unleash melismas at the top of her vocal range." Jozen Cummings of "The Wall Street Journal" commented that "the focus was on her voice [on] 'Love on Top' [...] she changes key four times — impressive on the album but even more so in person." Yolanda Sangweni of "Essence" magazine stated that the fact that Beyoncé goes through four key changes is "quite a feat for any singer." The live performance was later included on the DVD "" which chronicled the concert. It premiered online and released on the iTunes Store on January 11, 2012.


title: Love On Top

text: In May 2012, Beyoncé performed "Love On Top" during her residency show in Atlantic City. Beyoncé started singing the song by saying, "Atlantic City, snap your fingers". According to Maura Johnston of "The Village Voice", the crowd "sang the chorus of 'Love on Top' and even... tried its endlessly modulating key-change while Beyoncé watched with bemusement and delight". Chuck Darrow of "The Philadelphia Inquirer" was positive about the performance of the song during the concert, saying, "As for the music, Beyonce kept the needle in the red zone for much of the show, dealing primarily in such full-throttle, groove-intensive signature tracks as 'Love on Top'". Tris McCall of New Jersey On-Line noted that she "made the most of each modulation and break" while performing the song. Rebecca Thomas of MTV News was also positive about the performance, writing, "Without missing a step of the New Edition-inspired choreography, B powered through the song's modulations in an extended vocal showcase." The performance of "Love On Top" on the concert was later included on the concert film "Live in Atlantic City" (2013).


title: Love On Top

text: Beyoncé sang the chorus of the song a cappella during the opening of her Super Bowl XLVII halftime show performance. In 2013 and 2014, the song was part of the set list of Beyoncé's The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour. On May 8, 2013, while performing the song in Manchester, she held her microphone out to a random audience member, which turned out to be British singer Joe McElderry, who sang a line of the song through the microphone. An a cappella version of the song was performed in 2016 as part of the setlist of The Formation World Tour.


title: Love On Top

text: At the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, Beyoncé performed "Love On Top" after having said on the black carpet about an hour before going on stage that she would be making an announcement. Before beginning her live performance, she said to the audience: "Tonight I want you to stand up on your feet, I want you to feel the love that's growing inside of me", giving a hint about the news that she had alluded to on the black carpet. She took the stage in "a purple spangly tuxedo jacket, black pants and white tuxedo shirt, still rocking her fierce six-inch heels of old, pregnant or not", as stated by Gil Kaufman of MTV News. As she performed, her blond hair blowing in the wind, and backed by six dancers wearing similar shimmering tuxes, Beyoncé gave new meaning to the lyrics: "Now everybody asks me why I'm smiling out from ear to ear." She kept her dancing to a minimum for most of the song as she held onto the microphone stand while singing "Love On Top". Eventually making her way to the extended lip in front of the stage and throwing down, she encouraged the audience to put their hands together. Beyoncé ended the performance by dropping the microphone, opening her jacket, rubbing her belly, and thus announcing her pregnancy to the world.


title: Love On Top

text: Describing Beyoncé as "a veteran on the VMA stage", Kaufman wrote that "the audience was clearly feeling the love also" and praised how she "[got] a bit wild as she brought the tune home with some of her signature." Staff members of the AOL's "The Boombox" commented that the lyrics of the song "felt especially meaningful" to announce her pregnancy to the world. Staff members of "Rolling Stone" called the performance "spectacular" while Todd Martens of the "Los Angeles Times" called it "rousing". Claire Suddath of "Time" magazine commented that "this offering from the reigning queen of pop music is relatively toned down and yet she still looked and sounded better than nearly everyone else at the awards." Similarly, Darren Franich of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote that "If you had to pick one defining moment, it would have to be Beyoncé's baby bump. The diva's rendition of 'Love on Top' might not have been her best VMA performance ever, but there's no denying the sheer electricity in the room when she ended her set by proudly revealing her pregnant tummy." A critic of "Essence" magazine concluded that "[Beyoncé's] performance of 'Love on Top' at the 2011 VMAs [...] will surely be one of the year's most memorable pop culture moments." The writers of MTV News placed the performance at number 4 on their list of Best Live MTV Performances of 2011. It was stated that Beyoncé was in "typical Sasha Fierce fashion" while the performance was described as "ebullient". Erika Ramirez of "Billboard" magazine put the performance at number two on her list of "Beyonce's 5 Biggest TV Performances" adding that it was "one of the most memorable TV moments of her career". Dan Hyman from "Rolling Stone" listed the performance and Beyoncé's announcement of her pregnancy at number 17 on the list of "The 24 Wildest Moments in VMA History", while "Billboard" listed it at number 7 on its list of "MTV VMAs' 10 Best Performances Ever" in 2013.


title: Love On Top

text: On March 18, 2012, the girls on the Australian talent show "Young Talent Time" team opened the show with a performance of "Love On Top", while the boys performed as backing vocalists. Diana Rouvas performed the song on "The Voice" (Australia) on May 21, 2012. Michelle Graffin of "The Age" called it the "song of the night", writing that Rouvas was "so good she can wrestle 'Love on Top' from Beyoncé's iron grip and transform it into a smokey nightclub number worthy of the young Liza Minnelli". Rouvas' version of "Love On Top" peaked at number 22 on the Australian Singles Chart on June 3, 2012. On September 17, 2012, Nathaniel Willemse performed "Love On Top" during the first live show of the fourth season of "The X Factor" in Australia. A writer for Take 40 Australia called it a "smooth performance". On February 22, 2013, Novita Dewi performed "Love On Top" during the first gala show of the first season of "X Factor Indonesia".


title: Love On Top

text: Amber Holcomb, a contestant of the 12th season of "American Idol" covered the song on April 10, 2013, during an episode of the show. Brian Mansfield of "USA Today" praised her performance writing that she was "comfortable and confident and happy" but added that the high melody of the song "puts a little strain on her voice toward the end". That was somewhat echoed by Bobby Olivier of "The Star-Ledger" who noted that the performance was "pitchy, but a lot of fun". However, he wrote that Holcomb "seemed to struggle a little with keeping up with the melody" and that her version was different from the original, but concluded that it was a solid performance. On April 8, 2013, Zendaya and Val Chmerkovskiy performed a samba dance to the song during the 16th season of the American show "Dancing with the Stars". Morissette and Penelope Matanguihan performed the song on the first season of "The Voice of the Philippines" on June 23 and July 14, 2013, respectively. In 2018 Dami Im released a version on her album "I Hear a Song". On February 9, 2017, Peck Palitchoke, a contestant of The Mask Singer Thailand (season 1) under the kangaroo mask, performed "Love On Top". In August 2020, the cast of "Pitch Perfect" performed a cover of the song and was part of a charity for Unicef, from the COVID-19 pandemic and the explosion of Beirut.


title: Earnest Hooton

text: Earnest Albert Hooton (November 20, 1887 – May 3, 1954) was an American physical anthropologist known for his work on racial classification and his popular writings such as the book "Up From The Ape". Hooton sat on the Committee on the Negro, a group that "focused on the anatomy of blacks and reflected the racism of the time."


title: Earnest Hooton

text: Earnest Albert Hooton was born in Clemansville, Wisconsin, the third child and only son of an English-born Methodist minister married to a Canadian-born woman of Scotch-Irish ancestry. He was educated at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. After earning his BA there in 1907, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, which he deferred in order to continue his studies in the United States. He pursued graduate studies in Classics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he received an MA in 1908 and a Ph.D. in 1911 on "The Pre-Hellenistic Stage of the Evolution of the Literary Art at Rome", and then continued on to England. He applied for and was awarded a Rhodes scholarship, electing to study at Oxford. There he assisted in the excavation of Viking boat burials. Studying with R.R. Marett, he received a diploma in 1912 and with Marett’s strong support he secured a teaching position at Harvard for next four decades. During this time, he was also Curator of Somatology at the nearby Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.


title: Earnest Hooton

text: With the beginning of the First World War, he was disqualified from military service due to the nearsightedness, but nonetheless he volunteered for training at the Civilian Military Training Center at Plattsburgh, New York, and became a passable rifleman at 100 yards. He also helped revise recruitment standards because too large a number of American immigrants were too short to qualify for service at the time.


title: Earnest Hooton

text: During the 1930s, between the two World Wars, his data collections helped U.S. Army make better-fitting military equipment, such as uniforms, tank helmets, gas masks, and aircraft seats, long before Le Gros Clark coined ergonomics for civilian (commercial) use.


title: Earnest Hooton

text: After World War II, he surveyed commuters in Boston’s North Station to help make more comfortable train seats, as described in his book "A Survey of Seating".


title: Earnest Hooton

text: He was one of the founding members of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, serving as president from 1936 to 1938 and associate editor of the "American Journal of Physical Anthropology" from 1928 to 1942, working closely with Aleš Hrdlička.


title: Earnest Hooton

text: Hooton was an advanced primatologist for his time. If the great Latin playwright Terence said, "Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto" ("I am a man; nothing about men is alien to me"), Hooton, following and correcting him, used to say: "Primas sum: primatum nihil a me alienum puto" ("I am a primate; nothing about primates is alien to me").


title: Earnest Hooton

text: Hooton was also a public figure well known for popular volumes with titles like "Up From the Ape" (1931), "Apes, Men, and Morons" (1937), and "Young Man, You are Normal" (1945). He was also a gifted cartoonist and wit, and, like his contemporaries Ogden Nash and James Thurber, he published occasional poems and drawings that were eventually collected and published.


title: Earnest Hooton

text: After reaching the official retirement age (65), he was invited to teach courses that had decreased in enrollment and died unexpectedly of a vascular accident while teaching.


title: Earnest Hooton

text: He was survived by his wife Mary Camp Hooton, whom he married in 1913, by two sons (Newton and Jay), one daughter (Emma Hooton Robbins), and two grandchildren.


title: Earnest Hooton

text: Hooton used comparative anatomy to divide humanity up into races — in Hooton's case, this involved describing the morphological characteristics of different "primary races" and the various "subtypes". In 1926, the American Association of Physical Anthropology and the National Research Council organized a Committee on the Negro, which focused on the anatomy of blacks. Among those appointed to the Committee on the Negro were Hrdlička, Earnest Hooton and eugenist Charles Davenport. In 1927, the committee endorsed a comparison of African babies with young apes. Ten years later, the group published findings in the "American Journal of Physical Anthropology" to "prove that the negro race is phylogenetically a closer approach to primitive man than the white race." Hooton played a key part in establishing the racial stereotypes about black athleticism and black criminality of his day in terms of an anthropological framework. Hooton was one of the first to attempt to develop mathematically rigorous criteria for race typology.


title: Earnest Hooton

text: At the same time, Hooton maintained that no scientific basis existed correlating mentality with racial variation. "...Each racial type runs the gamut from idiots and criminals to geniuses and statesmen. No type produces a majority of individuals from either end of the scale. While there may be specific racial abilities and disabilities, these have not yet been demonstrated. There are no racial monopolies either of human virtues or of vices." While advocating eugenic sterilizations of those deemed "insane, diseased, and criminalistic", he emphasized there was no justification to correlate such "degeneracy", as he termed it, with race. Anthropologist Pat Shipman presents Hooton's work as representing a transition in anthropology away from its 19th-century stereotypes about race and its fixation over cranial measurements. In that context, she writes, Hooton maintained an "oversimplistic mode of thinking about human types and variability" while at the same time he moved to eliminate unfounded racial biases and pseudoscience. His remarks in a 1936 conference dealing with immigration, for example, included a ten-point summary of the current scientific consensus about race which, in retrospect, parallel the points raised ten years later in UNESCO's landmark The Race Question.


title: Earnest Hooton

text: In 1943, Hooton had an article entitled "Breed War Strain Out of Germans" published in the New York newspaper "PM". In the article he proposed four measures with an objective to "destroy German nationalism and aggressive ideology while retaining and perpetuating desirable German biological and sociological capacities". Hooton wrote these measures as follows:


title: Earnest Hooton

text: In 1932, Hooton wrote an article titled "Is the Negro Inferior". It was published by the Crisis magazine. He brought up the discussion of racial differences and claimed that it existed in the United States. Hooton first defined race as a matter of inheritance. As we grow up we observe that a group of people with different physical appearances also have different manners or culture than ourselves. The differences between races have made the basis of racial differences. The conflict has begun when the natives use their behaviors as the standard of living. As Hooton said, "We are then likely to infer that the people who have produced [a distinct material culture] belong to a race inferior to ours." We first assumed the native measure of culture is the standard and all the outcasts were inferior. Then, we developed a set of thinking that a culture is an accurate measurement of the individual intelligence. That was where racial segregation or discrimination begins.


title: Earnest Hooton

text: Hooton also brought out the controversy of the intelligence test. Hooton believed we should be aware of the bias existing in those tests. Different races have different cultural backgrounds; he thought that maybe it was the Whites who cannot devise intelligent tests that are fairly applicable.


title: Earnest Hooton

text: Hooton led the examinations of skulls found in Ireland by the "Harvard Archaeological Mission to Ireland" (1932–36), with Clarence Wesley Dupertuis and Helen Lucerne Dawson,<ref name="google/books=_eoiwQEACAAJ"></ref> that was sponsored by the Irish Free State government, and conveniently found many of the right "types", if not exactly an identifiably-distinct "race". The Irish Free State was set up in 1922 in line with the beliefs of Irish nationalism, including the assumption that the island-dwelling Irish must be the purest of the Celtic-speaking races. Hooton's work was not quoted after 1945.


title: Earnest Hooton

text: E.B. Reuter, a sociologist and contemporary of Hooton, criticized Hooton for using circular logic when he ascribed the physical traits of criminals to cause criminality.


title: Zviad Gamsakhurdia

text: Zviad Konstantines dze Gamsakhurdia (; ; 31 March 1939 – 31 December 1993) was a Georgian politician, dissident, scholar, and writer who became the first democratically elected President of Georgia in the post-Soviet era.


title: Zviad Gamsakhurdia

text: A prominent exponent of Georgian nationalism, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was involved in Soviet dissident movement from his early teens. In 1953, he was one of the founders of Gorgasliani, a nationalist group, which disseminated anti-Soviet proclamations in Tbilisi. His activities attracted attention of Soviet intelligence, and Gamsakhurdia was arrested and sent to imprisonment, although he was soon pardoned and released from jail. Gamsakhurdia co-founded the Georgian Helsinki Group, which sought to bring attention to human rights violations in the Soviet Union. He organized numerous pro-independence protests in Georgia, one of which in 1989 was suppressed by the Soviet Army, with Gamsakhurdia being arrested. Eventually, a number of underground political organizations united around Zviad Gamsakhurdia and formed the Round Table—Free Georgia coalition, which successfully challenged the ruling Communist Party of Georgia in the 1990 elections. Gamsakhurdia was elected as the President of Georgia in 1991, gaining 87% of votes in election. Despite popular support, Gamsakhurdia found significant opposition from the urban intelligentsia and former Soviet nomenklatura, as well as from his own ranks. In late 1991 Gamsakhurdia was couped by warlords Tengiz Kitovani, Jaba Ioseliani and Tengiz Sigua, two of which were formerly allied with Gamsakhurdia. Gamsakhurdia was forced to flee to Chechnya, where he was greeted by Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev. His supporters continued to fight post-coup government of Eduard Shevardnadze. In September 1993, Gamsakhurdia returned to Georgia and tried to regain power. Despite initial success, the rebellion was eventually crushed by the government forces with the help of Russian military. Gamsakhurdia was forced to go into hiding in Samegrelo, a Zviadist stronghold. He was found dead in early 1994 in controversial circumstances. His death remains uninvestigated to this day, with many speculating that Gamsakhurdia was betrayed and killed by someone from his own circle under the instruction of the government.


title: Zviad Gamsakhurdia

text: After the civil war ended, the government continued to suppress Gamsakhurdia's supporters, even with brutal tactics. Nevertheless, Gamsakhurdia is considered as the best President by the majority of Georgians to this day. He was rehabilitated by the President Mikheil Saakashvili and awarded the title and Order of National Hero of Georgia by the President Giorgi Margvelashvili. Government officials as well as people pay tribute to memory of Zviad Gamsakhurdia every year on his birthday. He is universally recognized in the country as the best leader of post-independence Georgia.


title: Zviad Gamsakhurdia

text: Gamsakhurdia was a prominent proponent of Georgian nationalism. He campaigned against what he considered as the demographic replacement of ethnic Georgians by Communist authorities, artificial increasing of ethnic minority population in Georgia and discrimination of Georgians. Gamsakhurdia also promoted pan-Caucasian views and unity of the Peoples of the Caucasus in the face of Russian imperialism. Gamsakhurdia considered Georgians to be inherently European nation and belonging to the European civilization.