Music Box Dancer
| "Music Box Dancer" | ||||||||
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| Single by Frank Mills | ||||||||
| from the album Music Box Dancer | ||||||||
| A-side | "The Poet and I" | |||||||
| Released | 1978 | |||||||
| Recorded | 1974 | |||||||
| Length | 3:15 | |||||||
| Label | Polydor | |||||||
| Writer(s) | Frank Mills | |||||||
| Frank Mills singles chronology | ||||||||
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"Music Box Dancer" is an instrumental piece by Canadian musician Frank Mills that was an international hit in the late 1970s. It features a piano theme that is accompanied by other instrumentation, designed to resemble a music box.
"Music Box Dancer" was written and recorded by Frank Mills in 1974, but it was not to become a single until 1978. By Christmas of that year, it was in the top ten of many pop music charts throughout Europe and Asia. Released as a single in the United States late in January 1979, it reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on the week-ending 05-05-79 AT40, and it also reached number three on the Canadian Adult Contemporary chart and number 47 on the Canadian pop chart. The single also did well in Australia, reaching number 14 on the Australian Singles Chart (Kent Music Report).
Mills released an album in 1974 that featured "Music Box Dancer", but it was not a hit initially. When he re-signed with Polydor Records Canada in 1978, the label released a new song as a single, with "Music Box Dancer" on the B-side. The single was sent to easy-listening stations in Canada, but a copy was sent in error to CFRA-AM, a pop station in Ottawa. The program director played the A-side and could not figure out why it had been sent to his station, so he played the B-side to see if the record label had been mistakenly marked. He liked "Music Box Dancer" and added it to his station's playlist.
The song's success at CFRA was swift. "Music Box Dancer" premiered on CRFA's top 30 chart on May 5, 1978; by June 30, it was the number 1 song on the station's playlist. "Music Box Dancer" also began picking up play on other Canadian stations around this time, becoming a nationwide hit. Mills' album went gold in Canada, which, after several months, prompted Polydor in the US to release the album and single with the B-side, "The Poet and I".
The million-selling Gold-certified single reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1979 as well as #4 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart, while the album reached #21 on the Billboard Top Album chart and also went gold. Polydor awarded a gold record to TV station WNGE for breaking the single in the U.S.
It was Mills' only U.S. Top 40 pop hit; the follow-up, another piano instrumental titled "Peter Piper", peaked at #48 on the Billboard Hot 100, although it was a popular Top 10 hit on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. Mills managed one final Adult Contemporary chart entry, "Happy Song", which peaked at #41 at the beginning of 1981. He is most known for playing this song. Mills also released a version of Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool" with substantial airplay in Ontario during the 70's and 80's.
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