Silence (song)

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"Silence"

Single by Delerium featuring Sarah McLachlan
from the album Karma
Released	June 14, 1999 Various releases 2000
Format	12", CD
Recorded	???
Genre	Electronic dance
Length	4:06
Label	Nettwerk
Writer(s)	Bill Leeb, Rhys Fulber, Sarah McLachlan
Producer(s)	Delerium
Chart positions
#3 (UK Singles Chart) #5 (Canadian Singles Chart) #6 (US Hot Dance Music/Club Play) #25 (US Adult Top 40)
Delerium chronology
"Duende" (1997)	"Silence" (1999)	"Heaven's Earth" (2000)

"Silence 2004"

Single by Delerium featuring Sarah McLachlan
from the album The Best Of
Released	November 15, 2004
Format	12", CD
Genre	Electronic dance
Length	Various
Label	Nettwerk
Producer(s)	Various
Chart positions
#1 (US Hot Dance Music/Club Play) #4 (US Hot Dance Singles Sales)
Delerium chronology
"Truly" (2004)	"Silence 2004" (2004)

"Silence" is a song by Canadian electronic music group Delerium. The song was co-written by Canadian singer Sarah McLachlan, and she is featured as vocalist on the track.

1 Song
2 Re-release
3 Brokedown Palace
4 Notes and references

[edit] Song

The original album version and subsequent radio edit of the song had a much slower tempo than the more well-known remixes and was essentially structured like a pop song, with the characteristic synthetic instrumentation of the more melodic side of ambient music — though including darker overtones, such as the prominently featured Gregorian chants. This last element often invites comparison to popular ambient/new age/world music projects of the 1990s like Enigma and Deep Forest who routinely sample chants from various ethnicities worldwide, though in contrast such vocals featured on Karma were all original recordings.^[1]

The song was not released as a single until 1999, two years after the release of Karma, though it was only the Airscape Remix which received airplay, rather than the more downtempo original version. The single prominently included remixes by DJ Tiësto, and Fade, which significantly boosted the song's proliferation through club play (particularly by influential DJs such as Paul Oakenfold) as evidenced by the single's positions on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts.

As a consequence, the song was largely promoted as an uptempo vocal trance song, which then influenced the marketing of the next several Delerium singles as well. Unlike most of its successors, however, "Silence" also broke into the adult top 40 radio format due to the song's club success,^[2] and through radio airplay the original version received mainstream awareness relatively greater than the remixes among club patrons.

The accompanying music video, directed by the directors collective Twobigeyes, was released in 2000 and was set to the Airscape remix. It has repeatedly been listed within the top 100 Ibiza anthems ever on online messageboards and, more recently, on MTV.

[edit] Re-release

2004 saw a new release of the single as "Silence 2004", though no one song actually bears that title — the new single contained only remixes, both old and new. Of these, the new Above & Beyond remix is probably the most central as it was the version included on the Best Of compilation released preceding the single. In addition, in 2006 the song was remixed under the suffix of "Trentemøller 2006 Remix", embracing a more minimal house adaptation.