Raving I'm Raving

Album: single release only (1992)
Charted: 2
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Songfacts®:

  • Shut Up And Dance was formed in 1988 in Stoke Newington, London, by two black club DJs: Philip "PJ" Johnson and Carl "Smiley" Hyman. By speeding up hip-hop and funk breaks, they practically invented jungle. This poppy, high speed rave track was their biggest hit.
  • PJ and Smiley based the song without permission on Marc Cohn's "Walking In Memphis," over which Peter Bouncer (who really was a club bouncer!) sings about going to Ibiza for a raving holiday.
  • The song is a satire of drug culture, which clubbers had assumed PJ and Smiley went along with. Smiley explained to Red Bull Music Academy: "We never really liked old school ravey hardcore. I never liked that then, I don't like it now. It's weird to be sucked into something. People used to say, 'You're king of raves, king of hardcore.' What?"
  • Shut Up And Dance were renowned for their flagrant abuse of samples, which led to this song's downfall. After it entered the UK charts at #2, a legal challenge obliged the duo to stop pressing copies and donate the profits from the single to charity. The track dropped to #15 the following week based on the copies remaining in store, after which it dropped out of the chart completely.

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