Delerium – ‘Silence’

5 February 2000

Delerium are two Canadian guys, but the lead vocal on ‘Silence’ is a woman’s voice. Since there’s no ‘ft’ or other billing on the single cover (above) apart from the B-side remixers Fade, who happen to be two American guys, I wonder who the actual singer on the main event is. Turns out it’s Sarah McLachlan, who by 2000 was not only already a Grammy-winning, multi-million-selling artist but also the pioneering founder of Lilith Fair, a hugely successful and influential travelling music festival featuring only women, as a way of highlighting and addressing the—oh yes—lack of female names on most summer rock festival line-ups. And this the week after a song called ‘Born To Make You Happy’ written for a young female singer by two Swedish guys. Honest to God, one of these mornings all us men will wake up murdered in our beds. (Later re-releases eventually feature McLachlan’s name on the cover.)

Another way of looking at this, though, is whether ‘Silence’ by Delerium is a record anyone would want their name associated with. The chart-topping version being a house remix of a trance track, it pretty much buries McLachlan’s vocal in layers of generic ’99-00 dance vibes; the title is the only word of hers I can pick out. I’d go further and say McLachlan’s part isn’t that memorable to begin with; in a new pop era stuffed with catchy hooks, ‘Silence’ is coming to the party empty-handed. In fact, I’m starting to wonder how it got to number one at all. Spoiler alert: this won’t be the only dance anthem at number one in Ireland in 2000 to have me asking that question.