"Midnight in a Perfect World" is a song by American DJ and music producer DJ Shadow. It was released as the lead single from his debut studio album, Endtroducing....., on September 2, 1996. The song peaked at number 52 on the Scottish Singles Chart and number 54 on the UK Singles Chart.

Composition

Featuring a soulful vocal line and a slow drum beat, "Midnight in a Perfect World" is based around mournful piano sampled from the 1969 song "The Human Abstract" by David Axelrod. Aside from the Axelrod sample, the track also samples "Sower of Seeds" by Baraka, "Sekoilu Seestyy" by Pekka Pohjola, "Releasing Hypnotical Gases" by Organized Konfusion, "Dolmen Music" by Meredith Monk, and "California Soul" by Marlena Shaw.

Release

"Midnight in a Perfect World" was released as both a 12-inch single and CD single on September 2, 1996 in England, and later in America too. In January 1997, the song was released to American college and modern rock radio stations. Both releases have different artwork, with the American release featuring a photo of John Hillyard, who owned a record store where DJ Shadow found many of the records he sampled on his album. The photograph was taken by B Plus, who also directed a music video for the song that was also released and gained much airplay on the MTV program Amp.

Track listing

UK release

US release

Charts

Release history