Insomnia

Release type:What's this?
single
First released:
Nov 1995

Overview Edit

"Insomnia" is a song recorded by British dance group Faithless. Released as the band's second single, it became one of their most successful. It was released in 1995 and became a hit in Dance Charts while peaking at #27 in the UK in 1995 and #3 in 1996 . The song also reached #48 in the UK chart as a re-entry in 2005 showing the song's longevity. The album version is nearly nine minutes long and contains some lyrics not able to be broadcast on the radio edit due to their explicit content. It also contained some Bells chiming at the start of the song not generally known by the club going public as many people know the Monster Mix or the Monster Mix Radio Edit. The Monster Mix was the mix featured on Faithless' greatest hits album Forever Faithless. The song topped the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart. The Moody Mix featured on some of the singles was also on the Reverence / Irreverence release.

The song features Maxi Jazz singing as an insomniac while he struggles to sleep ("I toss and I turn without cease, like a curse, open my eyes and rise like yeast/At least a couple of weeks since I last slept, kept takin' sleepers, but now I keep myself pepped"). The subject is resonant with fans of dance music, since stimulant use is common in club/rave culture, and insomnia a normal side-effect. The insomniac is also rather destitute ("Make my way to the refrigerator/One dry potato inside, no lie, not even bread, jam...").

Faithless have expressed their displeasure with the fact that elements of this song were reused by Sash! for his single "Encore Une Fois". Ironically, Norwegian electronica artist Biosphere has claimed that Faithless sampled the bassline from his single "Novelty Waves", although the fact that they had changed one note meant that he never received royalties.

The Overview appearing in this section is attributed to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insomnia_(Faithless_song). Portions of this Overview may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Additional terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.

This particular version Edit

Record label:
Catalog number:
07822-13333-2
Release dates:
  • 1997 in United States
  • Apr 3 2001

Genres

Ambient, Pop, Dance, Trance. Vote on Genres

What do Amazon.com customers think?

5 stars A very worthy re-release
Its been six years since Insomnia initially blew-up to become one of the more important dance songs of the late 90s. Like several other BMG/Arista dance songs, this has been re-issued. There are no new mixes of the track, just mixes included on the 1997 US release. Does it really matter? No.

I find it hard to believe that anybody could top the Monster Mix of "Insomnia" no matter how hard they try. I also find it hard to believe Rollo & Sister Bliss together could ever produce anything as classy …
Written by Evil. P "evilp"
1 stars Talk about Over-rated
There was so much buzz surrounding this track in 1997 and 1998 that I had to check it out. Talk about a disappointment. NONE of the mixes on THIS CD are even decent. And it's not even hard enough on the baseline to be dance music. It's like after-hours or chill out. Maybe there is a good mix of this track out there somewhere, but it certainly isn't on this CD.
Written by R. Miller "NY Techno Guy"

Track listing Edit

  • CD

    format:
    number:
    title:
    number name artist hh:mm:ss
    1
    Insomnia (CEC edit)
    ?:??
    2
    Insomnia (Monster radio edit)
    ?:??
    3
    Insomnia (original mix)
    ?:??
    4
    Insomnia (Moody mix)
    ?:??
    5
    Insomnia (Tuff mix)
    ?:??

Credits Edit

  1. composer

  2. engineer

    1. Goetz [mix]
    2. Sister Bliss [mix]
  1. performer

    1. Maxi Jazz [vocals]
  2. producer

  3. writer

    1. Maxi Jazz [lyrics]

Other versions Edit

Insomnia 5 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Blow Up
catalog number: INT 828.098
release dates: 1995 in Germany
view details
5 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Blow Up
catalog number: INT 828.075
release dates: 1995 in Germany
view details
5 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Cheeky Records
catalog number: CHEKCD.017
release dates: Nov 1995 in United Kingdom
view details
5 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Cheeky Records
catalog number: CHEKCD.010
release dates: Nov 1995 in United Kingdom
view details
Insomnia 2 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Arista Records
catalog number: 07822-13332-2
release dates: Feb 24 1997 in United States
view details
6 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Jive Records
catalog number: 5 013705 157721
release dates: 1996 in Europe
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2 tracks format: 1 x CD
record label: Jive Records
catalog number: 5 013705 157707
release dates: 1996 in Europe
view details
2 tracks format: 1 x vinyl
record label: Cheeky Records
catalog number: CHEK12.017
release dates: 1996 in United Kingdom
view details
6 tracks format: 1 x CD
view details
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