"Inner City Life" | ||||||||
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Single by Goldie | ||||||||
from the album Timeless | ||||||||
B-side | Remix | |||||||
Released | 1994 | |||||||
Format |
12" single CD Single CD Maxi |
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Genre | Dance Drum and bass Electronic Jungle |
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Length | 3:50 (Radio Edit) 7:00 (Full Length) 21:03 (Album Version) |
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Label | FFRR Records | |||||||
Writer(s) |
Goldie Rob Playford |
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Producer(s) | Goldie | |||||||
Goldie singles chronology | ||||||||
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Inner City Life is a 1994 single by British electronic musician Goldie. Its probably his best known track and features vocals by singer Diane Charlemagne. The single is taken from his acclaimed 1995 debut album Timeless. The song is one of the most iconic drum 'n' bass works of its era. In 2013 the song was ranked No. 30 in Mixmag's list of 50 Greatest Dance Tracks of All Time.
"Inner City Life" is a portion of the album's first track, "Timeless: Inner City Life/Pressure/Jah", which is a 21-minute opus. The song fuses the breakbeats and basslines common in jungle with orchestral textures and soul vocals by Diane Charlemagne. It has been described as a ghetto-blues ballad, 'a yearning reverie of sanctuary from "inner-city pressure"'. The track features a sample from Ike Turner's song "Funky Mule", from his 1969 album A Black Man's Soul.
"Inner City Life" peaked on No. 49 on the singles chart in the UK in 1994. In 1995 it re-entered the chart, peaking at No. 39. "Inner City Life" was performed live at The Word on Channel 4. and it was included on the soundtrack to the film Trainspotting (Trainspotting 2: Music from the Motion Picture, Vol. 2). At the time of the release the single didn't got much radio play, according to Goldie. In an 2008 interview, he said:
"It’s still a good b-line after all this time. The thing I was kind of mad about was it never got radio play. No one would ever want to play it on the radio. Rinse FM or Kiss FM would not play the record and I found it very difficult, because when you look at it conventionally, it’s a good record. But then it was completely out of sorts and I found that very difficult as far as Timeless was concerned. Timeless was made first and then "Inner City Life" came out of it and I always found it very difficult that no one wanted to play it on radio and didn't want to give it the air time."
The music video of "Inner City Life" was directed by Mike Lipscombe. The video has a sepia tone.