"Le Freak" is a successful 1978 disco

Disco

Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...

 song by the disco band Chic

Chic (band)

Chic was an African American disco and R&B band that was organized during 1976 by guitarist Nile Rodgers and bassist Bernard Edwards. It is known best for its commercially successful disco songs, including "Dance, Dance, Dance " , "Everybody Dance" , "Le Freak" , "I Want Your Love" , "Good Times"...

. It was the band's third single album and first Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 and soul music number-one song. Along with the tracks, "I Want Your Love" and "Chic Cheer", "Le Freak" scored number one on the disco charts for seven weeks. The single album has the distinction of being the best selling record ever for Atlantic Records

Atlantic Records

Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...

 company, and the best-selling single ever for Warner Music Group

Warner Music Group

Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...

 until it was displaced in 1990 (by Madonna

Madonna (entertainer)

Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...

's song "Vogue").

The single achieved sales of more than four million and also scored number seven in the UK singles chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

.

The song was ranked number 19 on Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

Magazine's top 100 songs of the first 50 years of the "Hot 100" chart.
History=
This song commemorates Studio 54

Studio 54

Studio 54 was a highly popular discotheque from 1977 until 1991, located at 254 West 54th Street in Manhattan, New York, USA. It was originally the Gallo Opera House, opening in 1927, after which it changed names several times, eventually becoming a CBS radio and television studio. In 1977 it...

 for its notoriously long customer waiting lines, exclusive clientele, and discourteous doormen. Concerning the history of the song, guitarist Nile Rodgers

Nile Rodgers

Nile Gregory Rodgers is an American musician, producer, composer, arranger, and guitarist.-Biography:...

 later stated that the song was devised during New Years Eve of 1977, as a result of him and bassist Bernard Edwards

Bernard Edwards

Bernard Edwards born in Greenville, North Carolina, was a bass player and record producer, both as a member of the Funk/Disco band Chic and on his own. He died of pneumonia while touring in Japan.-History:...

 being refused entrance to Studio 54, where they had been invited by Grace Jones

Grace Jones

Grace Jones is a Jamaican-American singer, model and actress.Jones secured a record deal with Island Records in 1977, which resulted in a string of dance-club hits. In the late 1970s, she adapted the emerging electronic music style and adopted a severe, androgynous look with square-cut hair and...

, due to Jones's failure to notify the nightclub's staff. He said the lyrics of the refrain were originally "Fuck off!" rather than "Freak out!"

"Le Freak" was the first song to score the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100 three separate times. This record remained until 2008, when "Bleeding Love

Bleeding Love

"Bleeding Love" is a pop/R&B ballad co-written by Jesse McCartney and Ryan Tedder and produced by Tedder for British singer Leona Lewis's debut album, Spirit. The song is the album's lead single , released in the United Kingdom and Ireland in October 2007...

" by Leona Lewis

Leona Lewis

Leona Louise Lewis is a British singer and songwriter. Lewis first came to prominence in 2006 when she won the third series of the British television series The X Factor....

 became the second track to score number one three times. Later that same year rap artist T.I.

T.I.

Clifford Joseph Harris, Jr. , better known by his stage name T.I., is an American rap artist, film and music producer, actor and author. He is also the founder and co-chief executive officer of Grand Hustle Records....

 tied this record twice with both "Whatever You Like" which he recorded by himself and "Live Your Life

Live Your Life

"Live Your Life" is a song by American rapper T.I., and the third single, from his sixth studio album Paper Trail. It was released as the third single from the album on September 23, 2008. The song features Barbadian pop singer Rihanna, and was produced by Just Blaze and Canei Finch. It officially...

" which he recorded with Rihanna

Rihanna

Robyn Rihanna Fenty , better known as simply Rihanna, is a Barbadian recording artist. Born in Saint Michael, Barbados, Rihanna moved to the United States at the age of 16 to pursue a recording career under the guidance of record producer Evan Rogers...

. On two of these occasions "Live Your Life" dethroned "Whatever You Like" from the Number One Position. In early 2011, Bruno Mars

Bruno Mars

Peter Gene Hernandez , better known by his stage name Bruno Mars, is an Filipino-American singer-songwriter and record producer. Raised in Honolulu, Hawaii by a family of musicians, Mars began making music at a young age...

' "Grenade

Grenade (song)

"Grenade" is a song performed by American singer-songwriter and producer Bruno Mars from his debut studio album Doo-Wops & Hooligans. Initially released as a promotional single on September 28, 2010, it was later announced to be the album's second single...

" also matched this record.

The song is featured in the home edition of Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova 2. It is also featured in the game Just Dance

Just Dance (video game)

Just Dance is a music video game developed and published by Ubisoft for the Wii. It was released on November 17, 2009 in North America, November 26 in Australia, and November 27 in Europe. It is similar to the Dance Dance Revolution games in that dancers match moves on screen in order to earn...

 for the Wii

Wii

The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...

. The song is featured in Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail! during the fashion show portion of the game. It" was performed on the television program Glee

Glee (TV series)

Glee is an American musical comedy-drama television series that airs on Fox in the United States, and on GlobalTV in Canada. It focuses on the high school glee club New Directions competing on the show choir competition circuit, while its members deal with relationships, sexuality and social issues...

on the episode "Showmance", much to the characters' chagrin. Most recently, "Le Freak" was cover-versioned by the electronica band Millionaires for the MTV

MTV

MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

 movie Turn The Beat Around. The song can be heard in the 2010 film Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (film)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a 2010 American comedy film directed by Thor Freudenthal and based on Jeff Kinney's book of the same name. The film was released on March 19, 2010. It was released on DVD, iTunes, and Blu-ray on August 3, 2010.-Plot:...

in the Mother Son Sweetheart Dance scene. This song was featured in Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3 is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated comedy-adventure film, and the third installment in the Toy Story series. It was produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Lee Unkrich. The film was released worldwide from June through October in Disney Digital...

while Ken is modeling clothes for Barbie. The song can be heard on Freaky Friday

Freaky Friday (2003 film)

Freaky Friday is a 2003 film based on the novel of the same name by Mary Rodgers. It stars Lindsay Lohan as Anna Coleman and Jamie Lee Curtis as her mother. In the film their bodies are switched due to an enchanted Chinese fortune cookie...

's trailer. The bass line from the song was used by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 industrial rock

Industrial rock

Industrial rock is a musical genre that fuses industrial music and specific rock subgenres. Industrial rock spawned industrial metal, with which it is often confused...

 group My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult

My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult is an American electronic industrial rock band originally based out of Chicago, Illinois.-History:...

 for their track, 'Waiting for Mommie' on the Confessions of a Knife... album that was released in 1990 by Wax Trax Records.

Track listings

Atlantic 7" 3519, September 21, 1978

• A. "Le Freak" (7" Edit) - 3:30
• B. "Savoir Faire" - 4:57

Atlantic promo 12" DSKO 131, 1978 / Atlantic 12" DK 4700, 1978

• A. "Le Freak" - 5:23
• B. "Savoir Faire" - 4:57

Atlantic 12" DK 4620, 1978 / Atlantic Oldies promo 12" DSKO 178, 1979

• A. "Le Freak" - 5:23
• B. "You Can Get By" - 5:36

Chart performance

Chart (1978/1979)	Peak position
US Billboard Hot 100 Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...	1
US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Hot Dance Club Play The Hot Dance Club Songs chart is a weekly national survey of the songs that are most popular in U.S. dance clubs... (with "I Want Your Love" and "Chic Cheer")	1
US Billboard R&B Songs Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States.The chart, initiated in 1942, is used to track the success of popular music songs in urban, or primarily African American, venues. Dominated over the years at various times by jazz, rhythm and blues, doo-wop, soul,...	1
Austrian Singles Chart	6
Dutch GfK GfK The GfK Group, established in 1934 as Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung is Germany's largest market research institute, and the fourth largest market research organisation in the world, after Nielsen Company, Kantar Group, and IMS Health...  chart	5
Dutch Top 40 Dutch Top 40 The Dutch Top 40 is a weekly music chart, which started as the "Veronica Top 40", because the offshore radio station Radio Veronica was the first to introduce it. It remained "The Veronica Top 40" until 1974, when the station was forced to stop broadcasting...	2
Irish Singles Chart Irish Singles Chart The Irish Singles Chart is Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on behalf of the IRMA by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured...	20
Italian Singles Chart	2
New Zealand Singles Chart	1
Norwegian Singles Chart	9
Swedish Singles Chart	6
Swiss Singles Chart	2
UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...	7
Chart (1987)	Peak position
US Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play Hot Dance Club Play The Hot Dance Club Songs chart is a weekly national survey of the songs that are most popular in U.S. dance clubs...	15
Irish Singles Chart Irish Singles Chart The Irish Singles Chart is Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on behalf of the IRMA by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured...	13
UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...	19