Last Night a DJ Saved My Life (song)

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"Last Night a DJ Saved My Life"
"Last Night a DJ Saved My Life" cover
Single by Indeep
from the album Last Night a DJ Saved My Life
Released 1982
Format 5" single, 7" single, 12" single
Genre R&B/Disco
Length 5:38
Label Sound of New York
Writer(s) Michael Cleveland
Producer(s) Mike Cleveland, Reggie Thompson
Chart positions
Indeep singles chronology
"Last Night a DJ Saved My Life"
(1982)
"When Boys Talk"
(1983)

"Last Night a DJ Saved My Life" is a song written by Michael Cleveland for R&B/dance group Indeep. It features vocals from Reggie and Rose Marie Ramsey, and its protagonists recall how they were bored to death until a DJ played a hot song and saved their lives by giving new energy to the night. The song was released as a single in 1982 and became the most popular and successful hit released by their record label, Sound of New York. In the U.S. "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life" reached number ten on the R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart and number two on the Club Singles chart, and it peaked at number thirteen in the United Kingdom. The track appears as the third track of the namesake album released in 1983.

Rolling Stone magazine declared the song "one of the greatest songs ever written about being a girl, listening to the radio or any combination of the two",[1] and in 2005 editors of Blender magazine placed it at number 406 on their "500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born" list. The song also provided the inspiration for the title of the book Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey (2000). Because of the limited success of Indeep's later releases, the group's first single was their only hit and placed them into the one-hit wonder category of artists.. In 2004 UK house/trance music producer Seamus Haji made several popular remixes of the song through his own label, Big Love Records, and released them on a 12" single titled "Last Night a DJ Saved My Wife (ATFC mixes)".

American pop/R&B singer Mariah Carey co-produced a cover of "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life" with DJ Clue and Duro for her tenth album, Glitter. Carey's version of the song features rapped verses from Fabolous and rapped lines from Busta Rhymes, and it is heard during a scene in the film Glitter in which Carey starred. It was released as the album's sixth and final single in 2001 on a strictly promotional basis to boost the album's slow sales, as the preceding singles from the album had performed poorly. Because of its limited release and conflict between Carey and Virgin Records, the single's video (directed by Sanaa Hamri) was not released until late 2002/early 2003 through Carey's online fan club.

[edit] Trivia

  • The song's title and lyrics were an inspiration for the pamphlet 'An Airbag Saved My Life' which inspired Radiohead's song "Airbag" on OK Computer (1997).
  • This song was also sampled by boy-band Five for the song If Ya Gettin' Down. Which featured different lyrics, but still contained the same aesthetics for the background music.
  • The song is also featured in Paniq's album mentalmilestones, as the basis for the song "Last Night (WTF Remix)".
  • The song has also been remixed and appears on the 2007 album "Dance Energy"
  • The song's title lyrics have been incorporated into the song "Voglia Di Dance All Night" by Eiffel 65

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ [1]