| "Flashdance...What a Feeling" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Side-A label of US 7-inch vinyl release | ||||
| Single by Irene Cara | ||||
| from the album What a Feelin' and Flashdance: Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture | ||||
| B-side |
| |||
| Released | March 1983 | |||
| Recorded | Early 1983 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 3:55 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Composer(s) | Giorgio Moroder | |||
| Lyricist(s) |
| |||
| Producer(s) | Giorgio Moroder | |||
| Irene Cara singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Music video | ||||
| "Flashdance... What a Feeling" on YouTube | ||||
"Flashdance... What a Feeling" is a song from the 1983 film Flashdance with music by Giorgio Moroder and lyrics by Keith Forsey and the song's performer, Irene Cara. The song spent six weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the charts around the world. It was awarded Gold certification by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of one million copies and won the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Original Song and earned Cara the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. In 2023, the song was chosen by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Recording Registry.
Moroder had been asked to score the film, and Cara and Forsey wrote most of the lyrics after they were shown the last scene, in which the main character dances at an audition for a group of judges. They felt that the dancer's ambition to succeed could act as a metaphor for achieving any dream a person has and wrote lyrics that described what it feels like when music inspires someone to dance. The song was used for that scene as well as during the opening credits.
The song was the first single to be released from the soundtrack album and received positive reviews. Because Flashdance was going to be released in mid-April of that year, Casablanca Records released the single in March to market the film. The unexpected success at the box office resulted in stores across the US selling out of both the single and its parent album just days after Flashdance was in theaters.
The success of the song made it clear to Cara that she was not receiving royalties stipulated in her recording contract, and she took legal action against her label in order to be compensated. The backlash that she claims she suffered in retaliation for filing a lawsuit left her feeling shut out of the entertainment industry as she struggled to find work. Although she began receiving royalties for the recordings she made for them, the label and its owner declared bankruptcy and claimed that they were unable to pay her the $1.5 million settlement she was awarded by a Los Angeles Superior Court.
- ^ "The 50 Greatest Pop Songs of the '80s, Nos. 20-11". Metro Weekly. July 9, 2015. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
- ^ Gerard, Chris (July 7, 2015). "The 50 Greatest Pop Songs of the '80s". Metro Weekly. Retrieved May 22, 2023.
- ^ Breihan, Tom (July 15, 2020). "The Number Ones: Irene Cara's "Flashdance… What A Feeling". Stereogum. Retrieved July 27, 2023.
..."Flashdance… What A Feeling" works as powerful evidence that disco never really went away.