Home | Songs By Year | Songs from 1998
Music Sounds Better with You
Buy Music Sounds Better with You now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the song. And once you've experienced the song, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
{{Infobox song
| name = Music Sounds Better with You
| cover = Stardust - Music Sounds Better with You.png
| alt = CD single
| type = single
| artist = Stardust
| released =
| recorded = 1997
| studio = Daft House (Paris, France)
| genre = French house
| length =
| label = Roul, Virgin, Because
| writer =
* Thomas Bangalter
* Alain Qume
* Benjamin Diamond
* Dominic King
* Frank Musker
| producer = Stardust
| misc = }}
"'Music Sounds Better with You'" is the only song by the French house trio Stardust, released on 20 July 1998. It is a dance track built from a guitar riff sampled from the 1981 Chaka Khan song "Fate". Stardust comprised producer Thomas Bangalter, DJ Alan Braxe and vocalist Benjamin Diamond; after the single's release, they disbanded, believing this created "a certain magic and mystery".
"Music Sounds Better with You" was initially released on Bangalter's label Roul, followed by a wider release on Virgin Records, accompanied by a music video directed by Michel Gondry. It debuted at number two on the UK Singles Chart in August 1998 and stayed there for two weeks, becoming one of the UK's bestselling singles that year; it also spent two weeks at the top of the US 'Billboard' Dance Club Songs chart. It is certified platinum in Australia and the UK, gold in Belgium and silver in France. "Music Sounds Better with You" received positive reviews and has been named one of the greatest dance songs of all time by several publications.
Recording
In the mid-1990s, DJ Alan Braxe met Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk and gave him a demo of his track "Vertigo"; Bangalter released the track on his label Roul in 1997. After the launch, Braxe performed at the Rex Club in Paris, with Bangalter on keyboards and Braxe's friend Benjamin Diamond on vocals. They composed the first version of "Music Sounds Better with You" for the performance, using a looped sample from the 1981 Chaka Khan song "Fate", sampled using an E-mu SP-1200.
After the performance, the trio worked on the track at Bangalter's home studio, Daft House. They added a bassline using a Korg Trident synthesiser, drums with a Roland TR-909 drum machine, and Rhodes piano. They assembled the instrumental using an Ensoniq ASR-10 sampling keyboard, triggering different sections by assigning them to different keys. Diamond's vocals and the final track were compressed with an Alesis 3630.
The lyrics were written by all three members; the song initially had more lines, which were deleted. Diamond felt the sparse lyrics were "like a mantra ... something everyone could understand". Braxe recalled the trio listening to the finished song: "We were very happy because we felt like we achieved something original and quite new in its form."
Release
"Music Sounds Better with You" was released as a vinyl single on Bangalter's label Roul in early 1998. According to Braxe, the song initially confused Paris clubgoers: "It didn't take a long time for people to understand the structure of the track and start to dance on it, but the very first listen the reaction was, 'What is it?'" The single was intended for DJs, but demand grew after copies were distributed at the 1998 Miami Winter Music Conference. According to Roul co-manager Gildas Loaec, BBC Radio 1 DJ Pete Tong was the first radio DJ to play it. Loaec and Diamond said Roul sold between 250,000 and 400,000 copies.
Bangalter did not enjoy the pressure and attention the single brought, as his label Roul was "supposed to be a hobby, a creative platform". Stardust signed the single to Virgin Records, which sold over two million copies worldwide on vinyl and CD. Virgin released it as a CD and cassette single in the UK on 10 August 1998. In the US, it was serviced to rhythmic contemporary and contemporary hit radio on 15 September 1998, followed by a commercial release on 22 September. It topped the 'Billboard' Dance Club Songs chart for two weeks and reached number 62 on the 'Billboard' Hot 100. The song also topped the charts in Greece and Spain and reached the top 10 in at least nine other countries. It is certified platinum in Australia and the UK, gold in Belgium and silver in France.
Music video
The "Music Sounds Better with You" music video was directed by Michel Gondry. In the video, a young boy builds a model aeroplane while the members of Stardust, wearing metallic suits with faces painted silver, perform on television. 'DJ Mag' described the video as "charming" and "dreamy". The 'Insomniac' journalist Jonny Coleman wrote that the video "helps reinforce the notion that this whole Stardust concept is supposed to exist in some other familiar but foreign liminal space, something ghostly but still warm and inviting".
Critical reception
John Bush from AllMusic described "Music Sounds Better with You" as "one of the most irresistible, sublime dance singles of the decade". Larry Flick of 'Billboard' described it as a "euro-splashed ditty" with "an infectious li'l hook and a solid, old-school disco bassline ... its execution makes it pop with a refreshing energy". Another editor, Annabel Ross, called the song "sublime in its simplicity" and regarded it as one of the best dance songs of all time. Bruce Tantum from 'DJ Mag' wrote that the song "doesn't do much of anything, really, nor does it have to. It exists in a state of pleasure-giving perfection."
In 2001, 'Mixmag' named it the 11th greatest dance song of all time,[http://www.nwoutpost.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=30343] nwoutpost.com Retrieved 10 February 2011. and in 2013 named it the sixth greatest. In 2018, 'Mixmag' included it in their "Vocal House: The 30 All-Time Biggest Anthems" list. 'Pitchfork' ranked "Music Sounds Better with You" the 46th best song of the 90s, and included it in 'The Pitchfork 500', a book compiling the greatest songs from 1977 to 2008. In 2011, 'Slant Magazine' placed it at number 99 in their ranking of "The 100 Best Singles of the 1990s". In 2012, 'Porcys' ranked it the greatest single of the decade. In 2017, 'BuzzFeed' named it the 72nd greatest dance song of the 90s.
Legacy
According to 'Billboard', Virgin offered Bangalter $3 million to produce a Stardust album. The group created five or six demos, but decided to keep the Stardust project to a single song. Braxe said there were no plans to release the demos, saying: "I think it gives the record a certain magic and mystery." Apart from their performance at Rex Club, Stardust performed only once, in a 30-minute set at the Borealis festival in Montpellier, France.
Diamond and Braxe resumed their solo careers; Diamond said he found it difficult to return to his own style of music after Stardust, and his record company Sony pressured him to release more music like "Music Sounds Better with You". Bangalter continued to release music as Daft Punk with his partner Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. Daft Punk performed a mashup of "Music Sounds Better with You" and their 2000 single "One More Time" on their Alive 2006/2007 tour; a performance was included on the bonus disc of the live album 'Alive 2007'. 'Pitchfork' described it as "a combination so 'holy shit' ecstatic it would seem downright cocky if it wasn't so blissful".
In 2011, Big Time Rush sampled the song for their track "Music Sounds Better with U". It was also featured in the 2013 video game 'Grand Theft Auto V'. In 2019, Stardust remastered the song for its 20th anniversary; it was reissued by the record label Because Music and added to streaming platforms.
Track listings
Personnel
'Stardust'
* Thomas Bangalter guitar, production, songwriting, mixing
* Alan Braxe production, songwriting, mixing
* Benjamin Diamond vocals, songwriting
'Additional musicians'
* Dominic King songwriting
* Frank Musker songwriting
* Chaka Khan sample
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
{|class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"!Chart (1998)
!Position
|-
!scope="row"|Australia (ARIA)
|36
|-
!scope="row"|Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)
|94
|-
!scope="row"|Belgium (Ultratop 50 Wallonia)
|76
|-
!scope="row"|Canada Dance ('RPM')
|15
|-
!scope="row"|Europe (Eurochart Hot 100)
|30
|-
!scope="row"|France (SNEP)
|30
|-
!scope="row"|Iceland (slenski Listinn Topp 40)
|77
|-
!scope="row"|Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)
|60
|-
!scope="row"|Netherlands (Single Top 100)
|74
|-
!scope="row"|Sweden (Sverigetopplistan)
|align="center"|100
|-
!scope="row"|Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)
|48
|-
!scope="row"|UK Singles (OCC)
|11
|}
Sales and certifications
See also
* List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. dance chart
Notes
References
Buy Music Sounds Better with You now from Amazon
<-- Return to songs from 1998