Ride on Time

This article is about the Black Box song. For the MAX song, see Ride on Time (MAX song). For the Tatsuro Yamashita album, see Ride on Time (album).

"Ride on Time"
Single by Black Box
from the album Dreamland
Released31 July 1989 (1989-07-31)[1]
Genre
Length
  • 4:37 (album version)
  • 4:10 (Massive mix edit)
LabelDiscomagic
Songwriter(s)
  • Daniele Davoli
  • Mirko Limoni
  • Valerio Semplici
  • Dan Hartman
Producer(s)Groove Groove Melody
Black Box singles chronology
"Megamix"
(1989) 		"Ride on Time"
(1989) 		"I Don't Know Anybody Else"
(1989)
Music video
"Ride on Time" on YouTube

"Ride on Time" is a song by the Italian house music group Black Box. It was released as a single in July 1989 and included on Black Box's debut album, Dreamland (1990).

The Black Box member Daniele Davioli described "Ride on Time" as an attempt to create a dance track with the power of a rock song. The first version used an unlicensed vocal sample from the 1980 single "Love Sensation" by Loleatta Holloway. After the copyright owners took legal action, the single was reissued with rerecorded vocals by Heather Small, who later became famous as the vocalist of M People. For television appearances, Black Box hired the model Katrin Quinol to mime the vocals.

In Italy, "Ride on Time" was released by Discomagic Records. In the UK, it was released by Deconstruction and popularised by the DJs Paul Oakenfold and Danny Rampling. It topped the UK Singles Chart for six weeks and became the UK's bestselling single of 1989. It also topped the charts in Iceland and Ireland, and entered the top 10 of several other European countries. "Ride on Time" has appeared in critics' lists of the best house tracks, and in 2020 the Guardian named it one of the greatest UK number ones.

  1. ^ "New Singles". Music Week. 29 July 1989. p. 39.
  2. ^ Larkin, Colin (1999). The Virgin Encyclopedia of Dance Music (1st ed.). Virgin Books. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-7535-0252-5. This in turn predicted the wave of Italo-house hits (Black Box's 'Ride on Time', Starlight's 'Numero Uno', Mixmaster's 'Grand Piano') that dominated the 1989 dance scene.
  3. ^ Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig (1996). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-6797-5574-6. Italo house largely relied on diva disco samples, cut up and rearranged by Italian producers to create new vocal tracks, such as Black Box's "Ride on Time."
  4. ^ Ardenghi, Daniele (29 July 2013). "Una hit planetaria per la Time Records". Giornale di Brescia (in Italian). Retrieved 6 April 2014.
  5. ^ Lester, Paul (8 February 2008). "No 271: Sam Sparro". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
  6. ^ Muggs, Joe (23 January 2014). "Let's Fackin' Ave It! 21 diva-house belters that still sound incredible". Fact. Retrieved 2 July 2018.