"Boogie Fever" is a song recorded by

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

-based R&B group the Sylvers, from their 1975 album '' Showcase''. Their most lucrative single, it reached No. 1 in the US on both the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and

Hot Soul Singles The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart ranks the most popular R&B and hip hop songs in the United States and is published weekly by ''Billboard''. Rankings are based on a measure of radio airplay, sales data, and streaming activity. The chart had 100 po ...

charts as well as reaching No. 1 in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

on the ''RPM'' national singles chart in 1976. It was their third of nine Top 20 R&B hits and first top 40 pop single. ''Billboard'' ranked it as the No. 20 song for 1976. "Boogie Fever" is one of two

gold record Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

s by the Sylvers, the other being " Hot Line".

Content

The narrator of the song notes a change that seems to have come over his girlfriend. At the

drive-in movie A drive-in theater/theatre or drive-in cinema is a form of cinema structure consisting of a large outdoor movie screen, a projection booth, a concession stand, and a large parking area for automobiles. Within this enclosed area, customers can ...

, she turns down the speaker volume and turns up the radio to hear her favorite

disco Disco is a music genre, genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the late 1960s from the United States' urban nightclub, nightlife, particularly in African Americans, African-American, Italian-Americans, Italian-American, LGBTQ ...

songs. Then, at the pizza parlor, she "boogies" to the disco beat while eating her meal. He concludes that his girl must have caught the "boogie fever" which seems to be "goin' around". In the final verse, he consults his doctor and realizes that he himself has caught the "boogie fever" as a result of dancing all night, "doin' the bump, bump, bump" with his girlfriend.

History

After being signed to

Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007), and simply known as Capitol, is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-base ...

in 1975, Larkin Arnold, then vice president, hired

Motown Records Motown is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. Founded by Berry Gordy, Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, it was incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau ...

veteran Freddie Perren to produce the group. Kenneth St. Lewis, a long-time collaborator with Arnold, suggested that they write a song for them using one of the popular words of the day, "boogie". The song featured all nine of the Sylvers siblings, including the youngest sisters Angelia and Pat. The lead vocal was by Edmund Sylvers; Foster Sylvers was prominently featured in the bridge singing the line: "We kept it going strong". The bass line was performed by legendary

Motown Motown is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. Founded by Berry Gordy, Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, it was incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau ...

bassist

James Jamerson James Lee Jamerson (January 29, 1936 – August 2, 1983) was an American bassist. He was the uncredited bassist on most of the Motown Records hits in the 1960s and early 1970s (Motown did not list session musician credits on their releases un ...

, and the opening guitar riff was based upon that of "

Day Tripper "Day Tripper" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a double A-side single with "We Can Work It Out" in December 1965. The song was written primarily by John Lennon with some contributions from Paul McCartney and ...

" by

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

. The song was featured in the

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror novels and has also explored other genres, among them Thriller (genre), suspense, crime fiction, crime, scienc ...

miniseries ''

The Stand ''The Stand'' is an epic post-apocalyptic dark fantasy novel written by American author Stephen King and first published in 1978 by Doubleday. The plot centers on a deadly pandemic of weaponized influenza and its aftermath, in which some of ...

'' (1994) and the feature film '' Roll Bounce'' (2005). In 2010, "Boogie Fever" was briefly used in a scene in ''

Despicable Me ''Despicable Me'' is an American media franchise created by Sergio Pablos, Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio. It centers on a supervillain turned secret agent named Gru, his adoptive daughters, Margo, Edith, and Agnes, and his yellow-colored Minions ...

'', and in 2012 it was used in its theme park attraction adaptation, Despicable Me Minion Mayhem. The song has also appeared in TV ads for

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

Pentium II The Pentium II is a brand of sixth-generation Intel x86 microprocessors based on the P6 (microarchitecture), P6 microarchitecture, introduced on May 7, 1997. It combined the ''P6'' microarchitecture seen on the Pentium Pro with the MMX (instruc ...

Old Navy Old Navy is an American clothing and accessories retailing company owned by multinational corporation Gap Inc. It has corporate operations in the Mission Bay, San Francisco, Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The largest of t ...

and

Little Caesars Pizza Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt * ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film *The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John P ...

. An instrumental version was also music for level 1 and level 9 of the game '' Frantic Freddie''.

Chart performance

Weekly singles charts

Year-end charts

All-time charts

References

External links

Song review
{{authority control 1975 songs 1976 singles The Sylvers songs Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles Cashbox number-one singles RPM Top Singles number-one singles Songs written by Freddie Perren Songs about dancing