Released 1977 Recorded 1977 Length 4:15 | Format 7" Genre Euro disco | |
B-side "My Alphabet", "The Lady in Black" | ||
"Queen of Chinatown" (also typed "Queen of China-Town") is a song by French singer Amanda Lear released in 1977 by Ariola Records. It met with a great chart success and remains one of Lear's biggest hits to date.
Contents
Background
The song's lyrics were written by Amanda Lear herself, while the music was composed by Anthony Monn, her musical partner at that time. It's an uptempo euro disco composition with characteristic oriental elements. The song was released as the sixth and final single from Lear's debut album I Am a Photograph in late 1977, however, was included only on the album's re-issue, replacing "La Bagarre". The B-side of the single was "Alphabet", which had earlier received a separate A-side single release in the Netherlands. In Japan, "The Lady in Black" was released on the side B.
"Queen of Chinatown" was heavily promoted by numerous TV performances in 1977 and 1978. The song became Lear's biggest hit up to that point and now remains one of her most memorable songs. It reached number 2 in Germany, which is her highest achievement in that country to date, and number 2 in Italy, where it stayed kept off the top spot for four consecutive weeks in February 1978 by Matia Bazar's singles "Solo tu" and "...E dirsi ciao".
The song was recorded again in 1998 for the Back in Your Arms album. Minor label Mag Music released that re-recording as a promotional only vinyl single. In 2006, German musician DJenetix remixed the track and the new version was released as a single. In 2008, Amanda recorded a dance version of the song for her Amour Toujours album, in fact a re-release of the 2006 album With Love. Hungarian DJ Sterbinszky produced a remix of "Queen of Chinatown", using a sample from the original recording.
Music videos
A music video was filmed for German TV show Musikladen. It presents the singer wearing an oriental dress and holding a hand fan, performing the song with two backup dancers. This music video was released on a 3-DVD box set Das beste aus dem Musikladen Vol. 1 in 2012, together with ten other videos that Lear made for Musikladen. Another video was filmed for Italian prime time TV show Premiatissima, hosted by Lear at that time. This video was later used in her television special Ma chi รจ Amanda?, aired in Italy in February 1983.