Songoftheday 9/6/17 - Procedamus in pace In nomine Christi, Amen ...
from the album MCMXC a.D. (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11
Today's song of the day comes from Enigma, an act created by Romanian-born producer and musician Michael Cretu. After moving to Germany for school and remaining there, Cretu had his first success as part of the new wave band Moti Special, who had a couple of top ten hits in Germany including the #3 "Cold Days, Hot Nights" in 1985. That same year, he released a solo album under his name that had a European hit single with "Samurai" which made the top ten in a bunch of countries. And adding to that, he wrote and produced for German HI-NRG dance music singer Sandra, and her first big single with him, "(I'll Never Be) Mary Magdelene", went to #1 in Germany and a handful of other countries on the continent. Sandra would go on to claim eight top ten hits in her homeland by the end of the decade. At that time, Cretu decided to put together Enigma as a new age music outlet mixed with dance rhythms, with production musicians Frank Peterson and David Fairstein on board, as well as Sandra, who married him in 1988. The result was the goth-dance masterpiece MCMXC a.D., which combined elements of religious chants, medieval flutes, and percussion that sounded like Soul II Soul played in a dungeon. The first single released from the project was "Sadeness, Part 1", which played these Gregorian chants of Capella Antiqua München's "Procedamus in pace! (Antiphon)", which at the time was unlicensed, with Sandra cooing French come-on lyrics in between. Somehow this combo found a home not only in the dance clubs, but on radio, where it became a worldwide smash, including America...
"Sadeness, Pt. 1" became Enigma's first big hit in the U.S., reaching the top five on the pop chart in April of 1991. The song also climbed to #6 on Billboard's Modern Rock radio chart, and crossed over to their R&B chart at #67. The remixes on the 12" vinyl and CD single helped it to top their Dance Club Play list for three weeks, one of only four records to do so that year. Internationally, it was one of the biggest hits of the year, going to #1 in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland, and The Netherlands, and peaking at #2 in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Cretu would later by sued by the creators of the Gregorian chant sample, settling in 1994.
A second single from the MCMXC aD album, "Mea Culpa", reached the top ten in France (#4), Germany (#7), and Switzerland (#10), and got to #7 on the American dance chart. A third release, "Principles Of Lust", which as "Find Love" was part of the album suite with "Sadeness", got to the top-40 in France (#29), and was a minor hit in the UK along with "The Rivers Of Belief" (#59, #68).
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Here's the "Violent US Mix" that helped the track top the dance charts (and boy did it get played in the leather bars at the time)...
In 1991, to promote the single on TV, Cretu got a bunch of dancers to don religious-type outfits and lipsync...
In 2016, Cretu reprised "Sadeness" with Indonesian/French singer Anggun...
Up tomorrow: Squeaky-voiced soul singer has a palpitation, perhaps.
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