My First Kiss

My First Kiss: Creation, Recording, and Chart History

"My First Kiss" is a pop and electro-hop track by 3OH!3, the Colorado-based duo consisting of Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte, featuring Ke$ha, the stage name of Kesha Rose Sebert, an artist who had just broken through to mainstream commercial prominence with her debut single "TiK ToK" at the start of 2010. The collaboration brought together two acts that occupied overlapping spaces in the early 2010s pop landscape, both associated with a brash, youth-oriented party aesthetic and both benefiting from the electronic production conventions that were reshaping mainstream pop during that period.

3OH!3 had established their commercial profile with their 2008 breakthrough album Want and particularly with the single "Don't Trust Me," which reached the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 in 2009. The success of that single established the duo's formula: electronically processed vocals, deliberately irreverent lyrical content, and a production style that drew on electro-pop and crunk-influenced dance music to create a sound suited to both club settings and radio. "My First Kiss" was designed to operate within this same framework while broadening the appeal through the inclusion of Ke$ha, whose own commercial moment in early 2010 made her one of the most commercially potent featured artists available.

The song was released in May 2010 as the lead single from 3OH!3's third studio album, Streets of Gold. The production was handled by the duo themselves, who had established their production approach through their earlier work, and it retained the electronic, heavily processed sonic signature that had made their previous recordings recognizable. The inclusion of Ke$ha was a natural creative decision given the stylistic overlap between her own debut work and 3OH!3's established aesthetic, and the collaboration required no significant departure from either artist's comfort zone.

"My First Kiss" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on May 22, 2010, entering at position number 9. This was an exceptionally high debut position and represented the single's peak performance on the chart. The strong debut reflected the combined commercial weight of 3OH!3's established audience and the commercial momentum generated by Ke$ha's extraordinary early 2010 chart success, during which she had maintained near-constant chart presence following the multi-week number-one run of "TiK ToK."

The single spent 18 weeks on the Hot 100, a substantial run that demonstrated genuine and sustained commercial appeal well beyond the initial debut surge. After its peak at number 9 in the first week, the single dropped to number 21 in its second week before settling into the middle ranges of the chart for an extended period. This extended run was characteristic of singles that had achieved genuine radio penetration rather than simply benefiting from a high debut driven by front-loaded digital downloads. The song's 18-week chart presence confirmed it as one of the most successful singles in 3OH!3's catalog and a significant moment in the early career of Ke$ha as a featured collaborator.

The commercial context of spring and summer 2010 was particularly competitive for dance-pop and party-oriented pop. Artists including Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Ke$ha herself were dominating the charts with electronically inflected pop that shared production aesthetics with "My First Kiss." The song's ability to debut at number nine and sustain eighteen weeks of chart presence within this competitive field reflected both the quality of its commercial positioning and the effectiveness of radio promotion that kept it in rotation through the summer months.

The song received significant radio airplay across pop, rhythmic pop, and dance radio formats, which collectively drove its sustained chart performance. The track's accessibility across multiple radio formats was a function of its production, which was polished enough for mainstream pop programming while retaining enough rhythmic and electronic energy to work in dance-oriented contexts. This multi-format appeal was a key commercial asset that contributed to its extended Hot 100 presence.

For 3OH!3, "My First Kiss" represented a consolidation of their commercial position following the breakthrough success of "Don't Trust Me." For Ke$ha, whose debut album Animal had been released in January 2010, the collaboration reinforced her status as one of the most commercially bankable artists of that moment and demonstrated that her commercial appeal extended to featured guest appearances as readily as to solo recordings. The song stands as a representative document of a specific and short-lived cultural moment in mainstream pop.