Milky Chance’s “Stolen Dance” was a viral smash a decade ago, and the song has continued to rack up plays ever since. Twelve years after its release, the song’s music video has now surpassed a billion views on YouTube, becoming the latest member of the platform’s One Billion Views Club.
“And I want you/ We can bring it on the floor/ You’ve never danced like this before,” Clemens Rehbein sings on the electronic folk-pop track’s chorus. “We don’t talk about it/ Dancin’ on, doin’ the boogie all night long/ Stoned in paradise/ Shouldn’t talk about it.” In the video, directed by Jana Buchmann and Stefan Cantante, Rehbein sits and performs the song while a variety of images are projected over top of him.
“Stolen Dance” was the lead single on the Kassel, Germany duo’s debut album Sadnecessary. Though an earlier version of the song first appeared online in 2012, the official recording dropped on April 4, 2013, a few weeks ahead of Sadnecessary. Not until the fall of 2014, by which point “Stolen Chance” had become a YouTube phenomenon and a multi-week No. 1 hit on Billboard’s Rock Airplay chart, was the album finally released in the United States.
Back home in Germany, “Stolen Dance” won Best Single at the 1Live Krone radio awards in 2013, while Sadnecessary went on to be honored as Germany’s Best Album at the 2015 European Border Breakers Award (now known as the Music Moves Europe Awards). “Stolen Dance” was a No. 1 hit in Ireland, Austria, Belgium, France, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Switzerland.
In a 2014 Album of the Week review of Sadnecessary, SPIN described “Stolen Dance” as “a transfixing hip-swayer… that slithers its way through a surprisingly seductive verse to the group’s most anthemic chorus.” Critic Andrew Unterberger continued, “The key to the song, though — and maybe to the group as a whole — is how the moment the chorus has finished its chest-beating (chest-tapping, anyway), it shuffles right back to its trademark jaunt, like it felt uncomfortable being away as long as it was. You’re a little relieved to be back yourself, actually.”
Watch Milky Chance’s “Stolen Dance” on YouTube now.
