Last Night A DJ Saved My Life Impact On EDM
What an amazing title for a song! “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” by Indeep has a title every dancer in the world can relate to! I know I can! DJs have saved my life and expanded my mind more times than I can count. Also, more times than I can count, people have come to me after a set or even years later to tell me how my set has inspired them, filled them with hope, imbibed them with love, and resurrected their soul. It is one of the best aspects of DJing – period! “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” impact is a true story!
“Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” is inspirational late-stage Disco! The early 80s were an amazing time for music! They were an amazing time for Disco! It was the most direct predecessor to modern House with its “Proto-House” sounds. Many of the songs from that period are playable in House sets!
“Last Dight A DJ Saved My Life” is a song from 1982, so around they same time as most of my favorite Disco. Groups like Time, Bohannon, and Raw Silk were at their height! Labels like Westend, Prelude, and Casablanca had some of their most successful releases. The popularity of music sales had moved to the 12-inch single. Plus, Disco was fully “Proto-House” by that time! I was a brand new teenager and it was all so fresh and amazing!
Indeep Bio and Fame
Indeep is a early 1980s group based in New York. The group was led by its songwriter-musician Michael Cleveland. The group is best known for their song, “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life”. Indeep is known for employing a strong disco-esque bass line and early Hip Hop vocal elements and rap/sang backed by two female singers. They are able to create a fun, funky, soulful, danceable sound that is infectious to the dancer!
Unfortunately, their follow up songs were met with little success. That puts them in the “one-hit wonder” category. However, that one hit is a monster of a tune. One of the back-up singers, Magloire, went on to sing for Belgian Techno-Hip House group, Technotronic. In 2011, Peter A. Mercury, who published, managed, produced and toured with many top artists for many years convinced Cleveland to reform the band. Magloire and Ramsey were replaced by Beckie Bell and WiX.
“Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” Song
“Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life” was released on Sound of New York/Becket Records in 1982, but it hit peak popularity in summer of 1983. It hit the Top 10 in the US on both the R&B and Club charts. The song is also very popular in Europe and the UK. It is a 12-inch single release. “The 12″ mix was notable at the time for including a purely vocal accapella mix, an instrumental mix plus a track of sound effects contained in the song such as a toilet flushing and a phone ringing. The aim was to encourage mixing in the emerging New York DJ scene of the early 1980s and elsewhere.” – Indeep Bio.
The song has a widespread affect on dancefloors in 1982 and 1983. In later years, the vocals primarily, but really all the elements have a huge impact on dance music from the 80s to the 90s on through the decades of the 2000s. It has a strong “Proto-House” 4 on the Floor dance beat with early “House Party Rap” style vocals. The overall feel is that of the early House and late Disco sound popular particularly in New York. It is a classic for House, Hip Hop, Disco, and R&B. Take a listen and see what you think!!
You can pick up a copy of this classic on 12-inch single through Discogs!
https://www.whosampled.com/Indeep/Last-Night-a-D.J.-Saved-My-Life/
Additionally, you can get a digital copy using the link below for Amazon Music.
“Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” Impact Through Samples
“Last Night A DJ Save My Life” impact through the use of samples is largely due to the vocals. You may recall that the 12-inch single includes a vocal acapella. That makes the vocals easy to sample! The song has been sampled by 179 other songs. Multiple vocal elements are regularly taken. My personal favorite is the snippet that say, “You gotta get up, you gotta get down”. In fact my favorite song that samples “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” uses those words.
My favorite song using the sample unfortunately does not have a YouTube link so we’re not going to use it. For those who are curious, the record is Tribal Tee – “Tee’s Groove” and it is kind of a dancefloor classic in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. I’ve played it a lot!
For this episode we picked a different song that uses the same sample. It is a bouncy, pumpin House track. It uses, “You gotta get up!” repeatedly and than after a bunch of times it says, “You gotta get down!” It’s a fun song. The song is by Gant Garrard and it’s called, “You Gotta Get Up”. It is from a 1999 release on Dust Trax. Take a listen.
You can pick up a copy of this record on 12-inch single on Discogs:
https://www.discogs.com/release/1969-Gant-Garrard-You-Gotta-Get-Up
Digital copies of the song can be found using the link below for Amazon Music:
Last Night A DJ Saved My Life Impact Through Covers
“Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” impact in covers is substantial. It is a great song with amazing lyrics that are profound to anyone that has been healed by a night out dancing away their problems. It has been covered in 29 songs. The nice part of the song from the perspective of doing a cover is the vocals are easy to adjust to fit anyone’s version of the song.
There are EDM, Hip Hop, Pop, R&B, and even Soul/Disco covers of the song. Obviously, for our example we will listen to an EDM version of the cover. There’s a lot to choose from. Surprisingly, most of the EDM covers are from after the year 2000. It became very popular later on.
The song we’re using is from 2013. It is by a famous House producer named Milk, Inc. The use the exact title of the original. There is a smokey, sexy vocalist over a bouncy, moody House track. It is uplifting, energetic and moving. Later into the song it becomes a hands up happy club track. There’s DJ-like filter sweeps. Great party tune. An excellent cover! Here’s a video of Milk Inc performing their rendition live. Take a listen!
The song is not available on vinyl and even the CD single is extremely rare and expensive on Discogs:
https://www.discogs.com/master/539046-Milk-Inc-Last-Night-A-DJ-Saved-My-Life
Last Night A DJ Saved My Life Impact Through Remixes
The urge to remix a classic sound is often too much to resist. There are always many exceptional artists who vie to remix a great tune. That is true in this case as well! “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” is remixed a total of only 3 times. Two of the times, they did the remix as a mashup with another famous Disco song.
The third remix of it is done by Sylk 13 for Ultimix, the famous remix service. The song is remixed into a pumpin House mix that has a jackin feel. It keeps strong Disco sensibilities. They use the original vocals, as opposed to a cover vocalist. It is a fun, danceable romp. It breaks down into Hip Hop beats in the middle. Take a listen!
The song is available on Ultimix Vol 66 on Discogs:
https://www.discogs.com/master/464070-Various-Ultimix-66
Conclusion
Let’s be real. The actual draw of “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” is the vocals. It is awesome that the original 12-inch single includes a vocal accapella as well as an instrumental and a sound effects track. It has made sampling the song’s iconic lyrics so very easy. Anyone who goes dancing has a connection to the words in the song! How can you not love, “You gotta get up, you gotta get up, you gotta get down!”? Or the title words sung!
We hope you’ve really enjoyed this episode! There’s some great music in this episode. Usually we try to showcase the impact on a few different genres of music. However, all the songs in this episode were House. That’s okay though… The original lends itself to House as it is a “Proto-House” Disco tune. The vocals might not work as well in DnB.
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Chris! Is this the song you were referring to?
https://www.discogs.com/release/421831-Tribal-Tec-Ts-Groove
Holy goodness!! Yeah, that’s it… I guess I misread the title on my vinyl copy! Tec, not Tee… Thanks dude! It’s an amazing song!
Also, I for me, Milk Inc’s vocal style for this song is the tops! And I bet sampled itself.
I think that the Milk Inc version is the best version of the song too! It;s pretty amazing… Shame that even the CD single is about $55. Great song though!
The Milk Inc is not sampled, but there is a Rock cover of it….