Harlem (New Politics song)

"Harlem" is a song by alternative rock band New Politics. The song was released as the first single from their second album A Bad Girl in Harlem on February 20, 2013, through RCA Records, following the release of a music video three weeks prior. The song is widely considered to be the band's breakthrough into mainstream success. Lyrically, the song is about a "romantic adventure" member David Boyd had with a girl from Harlem, a neighborhood in the Upper Manhattan region of New York City.

Following its release, the song was featured in a trailer for the 2013 animated musical-comedy film Frozen (most likely in an attempt to fool audiences for a non-musical animated comedy film) and appeared in EA game NHL 14, Activision game Guitar Hero Live, and Windows 8.1. It is also featured as a "Now! What's Next" bonus track on Now That's What I Call Music! 48.

Release and commercial performance
In early 2013, the band teased that a song titled "Harlem" was set to release soon and would be followed by a full-length studio album. On Feb 20, 2013, the song was released through RCA Records as the first promotional single for the album A Bad Girl in Harlem. An accompanying music video was uploaded to YouTube on the official New Politics channel the same day.

After its release, the song quickly began to receive significant radio airplay and online streams. Just four days after it's release, "Harlem" entered the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, where it peaked at No. 4 and charted for 36 weeks, and remains their most successful single on both the chart itself and any other Billboard chart to date. Later that year, it began to briefly debut on Top-40/CHR radio charts as well, mainly due to its inclusion in several trailers for the 2013 Disney film Frozen, making it their first song to impact Top-40 radio in the US.

On June 29, 2017, "Harlem" received a Gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America, marking track-equivalent sales of 500,000 units in the US and making it their first and only song to date to receive any certification.