| "Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Indeep | ||||
| from the album Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life! | ||||
| Released | February 15, 1982 | |||
| Format | 5" single, 7" single, 12" single | |||
| Genre | Funk, New Wave, hip hop, post-disco | |||
| Length | 5:38 (12"7LP), 4:16(7") | |||
| Label | Sound of New York/Becket Records SNY-5102 |
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| Writer(s) | Michael Cleveland | |||
| Producer | Mike Cleveland, Reggie Thompson | |||
| Indeep singles chronology | ||||
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"Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life" is a song written by Michael Cleveland for R&B–New Wave–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 its record label, Sound of New York/Becket Records. In the U.S. "Last Night a D.J. 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 its 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born list. The song also provided the inspiration of 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 its only major hit and placed it 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 Life (ATFC mixes)." This version reached number thirteen on the UK Singles Chart and number one on the UK Dance chart in 2006.
The song is sampled during Madonna's performance of her song "Music" on her Sticky & Sweet Tour. The song is featured in the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on "Fever 105," one of the in-game radio stations which are accessed while driving.
American R&B singer Mariah Carey co-produced a cover of "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life" with DJ Clue and Duro, which appeared on her tenth album, Glitter. Carey's version of the song features Fabolous and 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 in Spain 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/EMI Records, the single's music video (directed by Sanaa Hamri) was not released until late 2002–early 2003 through Carey's online fan club.