Ride on Time

"Ride on Time" is a song by the Italian music group Black Box, released as a single in 1989 and included on their debut album Dreamland (1990). The first version used a vocal sample from the 1980 single "Love Sensation" by Loleatta Holloway, which had not been cleared; after the copyright owners took legal action, the single was reissued with rerecorded vocals by Heather Small.

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
Released1989
Format
Genre
Length4:37
Label
Songwriter(s)
  • Daniele Davoli
  • Mirko Limoni
  • Valerio Semplici
  • Dan Hartman
Producer(s)Groove Groove Melody
Black Box singles chronology
"Ride on Time"
(1989)		 "I Don't Know Anybody Else"
(1989)

The single was a chart success in many countries, topping the charts in Iceland, Ireland and the United Kingdom. It topped the UK Singles Chart for six weeks and was the bestselling single of 1989.

Recording

"Ride on Time" was written and produced by the Italian production team Groove Groove Melody, comprising Daniele Davoli, Mirko Limoni and Valerio Semplici. Davoli visited New York City and bought a 12-inch acapella of "Love Sensation", a 1980 single by Loleatta Holloway, planning to use it to create mashups.[6] Back in Italy, he was introduced to samplers, and persuaded the club where he worked to buy an Akai S900. He created the first version of "Ride on Time" using the S900 to sample the "Love Sensation" vocals.[6] Davoli believed Holloway was dead[7] and had read, erroneously, that sampling less than two seconds of copyrighted music without permission was legal.[6]

Limoni added piano chords and additional vocal samples.[6] Davoli said that as Italian rock music was not taken seriously, "Ride on Time" was the group's attempt to "do a song with the power of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, but with a dance beat".[8] The basic backing track was finished in less than an hour, but it took weeks to finalise the ordering of the samples.[8] Davoli tested the track in a club, but said: "It was heartbreaking. The floor had 1,000 people dancing, and it cleared it." However, his bandmates assured him that it was "the wrong club".[6]

The song title derives from the sampled lyric "Thank you baby, 'cause you're right on time". Davoli explained that, owing to his limited knowledge of English and Holloway's American accent, he thought the line was "ride on time".[9]

Release
Heather Small, who later found fame as the vocalist of M People, provided a rerecorded vocal.

Black Box showed "Ride on Time" to numerous Italian record labels, but none were interested, feeling it did not match their markets.[8] Finally, Davoli took it to Discomagic Records, who he said "would release almost anything".[8]

Shortly after the track was finished, British DJs Paul Oakenfold and Danny Rampling visited Italy looking for Italo house music. They heard an early pressing of "Ride on Time" in a record shop, purchased all the available copies, and brought them to England.[6] Around the same time, the UK record label Deconstruction contacted Discomagic, interested in licensing Black Box's earlier track "Numero Uno", but it had been licensed to Beggars Banquet. Instead, Deconstruction licensed "Ride on Time" and released it with no promotion, competing with the imported copies arriving in UK record stores.[6]

Sampling dispute

Deconstruction was concerned about clearing the "Love Sensation" sample, which was owned by Salsoul Records. Dan Hartman, who wrote "Love Sensation", asked for a third of the royalties.[6] Although Black Box initially balked at the offer, they later learnt Hartman could have asked for 100%, and Davoli said he had been "a true gentleman".[6]

After negotiations worsened with Salsoul, Deconstruction owner BMG asked Black Box to remix the song with a replacement vocal. Within a week, they had withdrawn the single and released a new version.[6] The replacement vocalist was Heather Small, then a session vocalist, who later found fame as the singer of M People.[10] According to Davoli, BMG were secretive about her identity even with Black Box, saying it was "a singer doing them a favour, someone who hadn't released any music yet but was a big priority for BMG for the future".[8] The label refused to confirm it was her even after she found fame with M People.[8]

According to Davoli, Holloway was never paid for "Ride on Time", as the sample was owned by Salsoul.[6] Holloway said: "I've been around for years trying to get this one hit record. It annoyed me knowing that Black Box were number one and I was not getting any credit for it."[10] Davoli said he regretted not meeting Holloway before her death in 2011, and would have liked to apologise "for how messy things got".[6]

Miming

When Black Box were invited to perform on the British music series Top of the Pops, they hired model Katrin Quinol to mime the vocals, as "none of us three blokes from Italy would be convincing replacements for Loleatta Holloway".[8] Quinol also appeared in the music video and other performances.[6] Davoli said, "You could tell those vocals didn't come from a slim girl like her. But she had a great influence on the public - she had the moves on stage and looked great and of the time."[7]

The miming drew criticism, which surprised the band, as it was normal on Italian television. Davoli later said he regretted using Quinol: "It was wrong. But in Italy, a lot of people used to sing on a record and labels would ask young people to become the image. I know ignorance is no excuse, but I learnt. We looked at American and English artists and realised they don't do that."[6] The group allowed Quinol to perform in Europe under the Black Box name.[8]

Commercial performance

Boosted by demand for the import, the UK "Ride on Time" single reached number one in the UK Singles Charts.[6] It topped the UK Singles Chart for six weeks, and became the UK's bestselling single of 1989.[6] In the United States, it reached number 39 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart.[11] As of 2018, it had over nine million streams on Spotify.[6]

Reception

Chris Heath from Smash Hits described the song as "quite brilliant".[12] Daily Vault's reviewer Michael R. Smith wrote in his review of Dreamland that he didn't like the song when it first became a hit, "though now I recognize how effective and timeless these tunes really are. Maybe it was the fact that they were overplayed to death back then. Now that a lot of time has passed, they sound fresher and fuller of life than ever."[13] Tom Ewing from Freaky Trigger commented that "Ride On Time" "is a series of peaks, with the union of 'Right on time!' and the piano riff the highest and most thrilling." He added that Holloway "isn't doing all the work. The trappings of Italo house – light, sequenced keyboard lines, bouncy bass, endless hi-hat all working in unison to give that gorgeous piano its lift – seemed to be on a hundred hits that summer, and the vocal hooks made this the biggest."[14] Josh Baines from Vice described it as "one of the more gargantuan records ever made", adding, "Pianos, wailing divas, the unmistakable smell of burnt rubber: what more could you want?"[15]

Fact ranked "Ride on Time" at number 4 in their 2014 list of 21 "diva-house belters that still sound incredible", writing: "Some people see this as a guilty pleasure now. Those people are fools. Banging piano + Loleatta Holloway = world changing greatness."[16] Mixmag included the song in their 2019 list of the 20 best diva house tracks, writing that its "overall feel and wailing vocal accompaniment still bangs to this day and it is considered one of the first high-profile examples of italo house".[17]

Black Box bought the rights to the Holloway sample in 2018. In 2019, for the song's 30th anniversary, they created a new mix of "Ride on Time" in the style of a 1970s disco track.[8]

Accolades
Year Publisher Country Accolade Rank
2005 Bruce Pollock United States "The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944-2000"[18] *
2010 Robert Dimery United States "1,001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die"[19] *
2011 The Guardian United Kingdom "A history of modern music: Dance"[20] *
2012 Max Australia "1000 Greatest Songs of All Time"[21] 539
2014 Fact United Kingdom "21 diva-house belters that still sound incredible"[16] 4
2019 Mixmag United Kingdom "The 20 best diva house tracks"[17] *

(*) indicates the list is unordered.

Track listings

UK CD maxi & 12" maxi (1989)

  1. "Ride on Time" (massive mix) – 6:37
  2. "Ride on Time" (Epsom mix) – 5:25
  3. "Ride on Time" (Ascot mix) – 2:57

German CD maxi & 12" maxi (1989)

  1. "Ride on Time" (the original) – 6:27
  2. "Ride on Time" (garage trip) – 6:05
  3. "Ride on Time" (piano version) – 2:53

UK 7" single (1989)

  1. "Ride on Time" (massive mix) – 4:10
  2. "Ride on Time" (Epsom mix) – 2:57

German 7" single (1989)

  1. "Ride on Time" (the original) – 3:55
  2. "Ride on Time" (piano version) – 2:53

German CD maxi (2003)

  1. "Ride on Time" (radio cut) – 3:06
  2. "Ride on Time" (extended club mix) – 5:54
  3. "Ride on Time" (Voltaxx dub remix) – 5:57
  4. "Ride on Time" (original version) – 6:27
  5. "Ride on Time" (exacto mix) – 6:38
  6. "Ride on Time" (Snapshot remix) – 6:38
  7. "Ride on Time" (Jay Jay radio cold mix) – 3:45

Charts and certifications

See also

References
  1. 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.
  2. 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."
  3. Ardenghi, Daniele (29 July 2013). "Una hit planetaria per la Time Records". Giornale di Brescia (in Italian). Retrieved 6 April 2014.
  4. Lester, Paul (8 February 2008). "No 271: Sam Sparro". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 April 2014. he also grew up on Italian house (...) as well as Euro-dance hits like Ride on Time
  5. Muggs, Joe (23 January 2014). "Let's Fackin' Ave It! 21 diva-house belters that still sound incredible". Fact. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
  6. Osborne, Ben (26 June 2018). "Game Changer: Black Box 'Ride On Time'". DJ Mag. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  7. Osborn, Michael (18 August 2009). "Sounds of 1989". BBC News Online. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  8. Earls, John (13 September 2019). "Lawsuits! Miming! An M-Person! Rave-pop glory! 30 years on, the inside story of Black Box's '80s mega-hit 'Ride On Time'". NME. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
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