Music Sounds Better with You

"Music Sounds Better with You" is the only record by the French house trio Stardust, released on 20 July 1998. Stardust comprised the producer Thomas Bangalter, the DJ Alan Braxe and the vocalist Benjamin Diamond.

Stardust wrote "Music Sounds Better with You" using a guitar riff sampled from the 1981 Chaka Khan song "Fate". It was initially released on Bangalter's Roulé label, followed by a wider release on Virgin Records, with a music video directed by Michel Gondry.

"Music Sounds Better with You" debuted at number two on the UK Singles Chart in August 1998 and stayed there for two weeks, becoming one of the UK's bestselling singles that year. It also topped the US Billboard Dance Club Play chart for two weeks. It is certified double platinum in the UK, platinum in Australia, gold in Belgium, and silver in France.

The song received positive reviews and has been named one of the greatest dance songs by several publications. Bangalter declined an offer of $3 million from Virgin to produce a Stardust album.

Recording
In the mid-1990s, the DJ Alan Braxe met Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk and gave him a demo of his track "Vertigo". Bangalter released the track on his label Roulé in 1997. After the launch, Braxe performed at the Rex Club in Paris, with Bangalter on keyboards and Braxe's friend Benjamin Diamond on vocals. At the time, Diamond was in a punk band, who did not approve of his collaboration with electronic musicians. Bangalter, Braxe and Diamond composed the first version of "Music Sounds Better with You" for the performance, using a looped sample from the 1981 Chaka Khan song "Fate", sampled using an E-mu SP-1200.

After the performance, the trio worked on the track at Bangalter's home studio, Daft House. They arranged the song using a Rhodes piano, a Roland TR-909 drum machine, a bassline recorded on a Korg Trident, and an Ensoniq ASR-10 sampling keyboard, triggering different sections by assigning them to different keys. Diamond's vocals and the final track were compressed with an Alesis 3630.

The lyrics were written by all three members. They wrote more lyrics, but discarded them. Diamond felt the sparse lyrics were "like a mantra ... something everyone could understand". Braxe said they were very happy with the finished song, feeling they had created something original.

Release
"Music Sounds Better with You" was released as a vinyl single on Bangalter's label Roulé in early 1998. According to Braxe, the song initially confused Paris clubgoers. The single was intended for DJs, but demand grew after copies were distributed at the 1998 Miami Winter Music Conference. According to the Roulé co-manager Gildas Loaec, the BBC Radio 1 DJ Pete Tong was the first radio DJ to play the song. Loaec and Diamond said "Music Sounds Better with You" sold between 250,000 and 400,000 copies on Roulé. Bangalter did not enjoy the pressure and attention this brought, as he had intended Roulé as a hobby and creative platform.

Stardust signed the single to Virgin Records, which sold more than two million copies worldwide on vinyl and CD. Virgin released the song as a CD and cassette single in the UK on 10 August 1998. In the US, it was serviced to rhythmic contemporary and contemporary hit radio on 15 September 1998, followed by a commercial release on 22 September. It topped the Billboard Dance Club Play chart for two weeks and reached number 62 on the Billboard Hot 100. In Canada, where a CD single was issued on 6 October 1998, it reached number two on the Canadian Singles Chart and number five on the RPM Dance chart. It topped the charts in Greece and Spain and reached the top 10 in at least nine other countries. It is certified double platinum in the UK, platinum in Australia, gold in Belgium and silver in France.

Music video
The music video was directed by Michel Gondry. In the video, a young boy constructs a model glider over several days while the members of Stardust, wearing metallic suits with faces painted silver, perform on television. DJ Mag described the video as "charming" and "dreamy". The Insomniac journalist Jonny Coleman wrote that the video "helps reinforce the notion that this whole Stardust concept is supposed to exist in some other familiar but foreign liminal space, something ghostly but still warm and inviting".

Critical reception
"Music Sounds Better with You" received acclaim. John Bush from AllMusic described it as "one of the most irresistible, sublime dance singles of the decade". Larry Flick of Billboard described it as a "euro-splashed ditty" with "an infectious li'l hook and a solid, old-school disco bassline ... its execution makes it pop with a refreshing energy". Another editor, Annabel Ross, called it "sublime in its simplicity" and said it was one of the best dance songs. Bruce Tantum of DJ Mag wrote that it "doesn't do much of anything, really, nor does it have to. It exists in a state of pleasure-giving perfection."

In 2013, Mixmag named "Music Sounds Better with You" the sixth-greatest dance song, and 2018 included it in its list of the "biggest vocal house anthems". Pitchfork ranked it the 46th-best song of the 90s, and included it in The Pitchfork 500, a book compiling the greatest songs from 1977 to 2008. In 2011, Slant Magazine named it the 99th-best single of the 90s, and 2012 Porcys ranked it the greatest. In 2017, BuzzFeed named it the 72nd-greatest dance song of the 90s. In 2022, Pitchfork named it one of the best house tracks of the 90s, while Rolling Stone named it the 73rd-greatest dance song.

Legacy
According to Billboard, after the success of "Music Sounds Better with You", Virgin offered Bangalter $3 million to produce a Stardust album. The group created several demos, but abandoned them and declined the offer. In 2012, Braxe said there were no plans to release the demos, saying it gave the record "a certain magic and mystery". He later said he had wanted to continue with Stardust, but Bangalter was focused on Daft Punk. Apart from their performance at Rex Club, Stardust performed only once, in a 30-minute set at the Borealis festival in Montpellier, France.

Diamond and Braxe resumed their solo careers. Diamond said he found it difficult to return to his own style of music after Stardust, and his record company, Sony, pressured him to release similar music. Bangalter continued to release music as Daft Punk with Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. They performed a mashup of "Music Sounds Better with You" and their 2000 single "One More Time" on their 2006—2007 tour; a performance was included on the bonus disc of the live album Alive 2007. Pitchfork described it as "a combination so 'holy shit' ecstatic it would seem downright cocky if it wasn't so blissful".

In 2011, Big Time Rush sampled "Music Sounds Better with You" for their track "Music Sounds Better with U". It was also featured in the 2013 video game Grand Theft Auto V. In 2018, Stardust remastered the song for its 20th anniversary. It was reissued by the record label Because Music and added to streaming platforms.

Personnel
Stardust
 * Thomas Bangalter – guitar, production, songwriting, mixing
 * Alan Braxe – production, songwriting, mixing
 * Benjamin Diamond – vocals, songwriting

Additional musicians
 * Dominic King – songwriting
 * Frank Musker – songwriting
 * Chaka Khan – sample