Sing:Sadeness Part 1
Album:Love Sensuality Devotion: Greatest Hits & Remixes
I always thought it was appropriate that this act was called Enigma. Because it's certainly odd that this mix of new age music, Gregorian chants and dance beats spawned the 1990 top five hit Sadeness. Enigma is Romanian born musician Michael "MC Curly" Cretu. In the late 70s, he was a session musician in Germany working for famed disco producer Frank Farian (Boney M). He also released albums of New Age music. After marrying his singer wife Sandra in 1988, Cretu got the idea for Enigma. You may recall when Gregorian Chants were popular briefly in the 80s. This gave Cretu the idea of mixing those chants with his usual music and do it to a dance beat. He recorded the album MCMXC a.D with Sandra on vocals, lyrics by David Fairstein and samples by Frank "F. Gregorian" Peterson. Cretu signed with Virgin Records and he decided to call himself Enigma. Sadeness is part of a larger suite called Principles Of Lust. Virgin decided to release a radio edit of Sadeness as a single. I don't think they expected much. So I'm sure they were surprised when Sadeness started gaining steam in dance clubs. Then it became a big hit in Europe and then it reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. On the original album, you can only get Sadeness as part of the larger suite. But it is separate on this 2CD budget comp. Polydor sued Virgin for sampling Gregorian Chant recordings. The chants are public domain but not the recordings. It was settled out of court. The album was certified 4XPlatinum. Enigma scored one other hit single Return To Innocence in 1993 from the album The Cross of Changes. By that time Cretu was sampling African tribal chants and he was sued for that as well. Cretu recorded as Enigma for years on Virgin. But he switched to Island for his latest CD The Fall of a Rebel Angel released last year. So Cretu turned a fluke hit single into a 20 year career. Here's the video for Sadeness Part 1 by Enigma.
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