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Maniac
Michael Sembello
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- Album
- Flashdance (Original Soundtrack From The Motion Picture)
- Released
- 1983
- Genres
- Length
- 4:05
- Tempo
- 159 BPM
- Label
- Mercury Records
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About this song
Phil Ramone produced the track and served as music supervisor for the 1983 movie Flashdance, which helped launch its success. Michael Sembello wrote it with his friend and partner Dennis Matkosky, who was inspired by William Lustig's 1980 serial killer thriller Maniac. Ramone asked the pair to change the original concept, and that change cost them an Academy Award for Best Original Song. The song topped the charts in the US and Canada in late summer 1983 and was Billboard's #9 biggest song of the year.
What it's about
The song is about a girl possessed with a passion for dance rather than the serial killer theme that inspired it.
Fun facts
- Sampled in 21 other songs, like “Tainted Memories by Ellie Goulding”.
- Covered 25 times, including “Maniac by Firewind”.
- Written by Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky.
- Produced by Michael Sembello and Phil Ramone.
- Recorded at Westlake Studios.