Malicious people joked that “Flashdance” it's “Rocky” in a more delicate version. Viewers love such stories: a character who has dreams, his surroundings who only smile indulgently, fighting, proving to the world that nothing is impossible. Cinema has already seen many such stories and there will certainly be more of them in the future. For a simple reason: it works great.
Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, the producers of “Flashdance”, decided to make a film about a girl who works as a welder and after hours pursues her great passion: dancing. The heroine dreams of getting into a ballet school, although she is terrified at the thought of dancing in front of a professional commission. He simply doesn't fully believe in himself, but he decides to fight and prove to everyone that he deserves success. Sounds like a blockbuster, right?
Speaking of hits, a good movie needs an equally good soundtrack. So the producers turned to their good friend, Giorgio Moroder. The famous producer and disco king had already worked with Jerry on “American Gigolo.” It was this musician who co-created even the famous ones “Call Me” Blondieso I guess no one is surprised that Bruckheimer didn't have to look for the right person for long.
It turns out that the soundtrack to “Flashdance” was almost created by someone else. The producers persuaded Moroder and sent him a warm script, but the artist hesitated. It wasn't because he didn't believe in the movie. Giorgio simply looked at the calendar and decided that he wouldn't be able to commit to working on the soundtrack. The producer recalled that he spent day and night in the studio, so he had no time for another project. However, he didn't say “no” straight away.
“I told Jerry Bruckheimer, 'When you've got the footage shot, send it to me and I'll look at it.' My girlfriend at the time saw the movie and cried. 'God, it's the best thing in the world. You have to work at it, it's great.' '…I immediately got to work,' Moroder recalled in the Chicago Tribune. The musician sent an initial idea for one song. This song turned out to be the most important song in the movie, “Flashdance… What a Feeling“.
Moroder may have been responsible for the music, but – as Hey sings – “a song must have lyrics.” So the producer asked his good friend and collaborator for help, Keith Forsey. He is a drummer who played on the soundtrack, and also the author of songs, including many hits from the 80s. Keith was supposed to write the words together with the singer. That's right, she sang “Flashdance… What a Feeling”. Irene Carawho, like Giorgio, almost had nothing to do with the film.
The artist achieved great success in 1980 thanks to the cinema hit “Fame“, in which she sang an Oscar-winning song. Irene was then quickly offered the main role in a sitcom, but it ended in a pilot because the television decided not to buy the production. Cara starred in films, but she knew that at this stage of her career She could use another “big” thing – on screen or in music. It would seem that Moroder's proposal could not have come at a better time. However, the singer hesitated.
It turned out that Giorgio had already wanted to work with Irene, but she was afraid that she would be called the “second Donna Summer”. Moroder and Forsey worked with the disco star and recorded hits with her, so any subsequent artist in this arrangement would naturally be compared to Summer. This is what Cara wanted to avoid, but eventually, also after the film studio's persuasion, she agreed to sing in “Flashdance”.
Before the duo started writing the text, Irene and Keith watched the most important scene of the film. This probably won't be a spoiler for anyone, so it's about the moment when the main character, Alex, decides to fulfill her dreams and appears before the ballet school committee. Of course, the dance was a metaphor in the film, the idea was to show a person who theoretically has no chance of great success, but starts fighting and gets what he wanted. Moreover, Cara herself was not only a singer and actress, but also a dancer, so she combined and understood these worlds very well. The artist said that Alex not only dances on the screen, but also fights for himself, his dreams and freedom, so the song should reflect this as best as possible.
Keith and Irene actually composed the lyrics during the car ride to the studio. If any motivational trainer read these words during his presentation, no one would be particularly surprised. The text actually looks like it's straight out of a “You are the winner” textbook. However, all it took was some production tricks from Moroder and Cara's great voice to make it work as a song and become a hit. Giorgio encouraged his friends to include the title of the film in the song. The problem is that “flashdance” rhymes poorly, so Irene and Keith “cheated” a bit. The musicians divided the word into “flash” and “dance” and used it in the song. The piece also received an appropriate title so that it would be associated with the film without any doubts. Marketers were delighted, and the single could start conquering the world.
“When we recorded this song, I knew we had something special. There are certain things you just feel,” Cara told BBC Radio. Jerry Bruckheimer was also convinced after the first listen that it would be a hit and later listened to the song over and over again. None of them were wrong. The film itself did not impress critics, but it charmed viewers. The production, which cost seven million dollars, grossed almost 30 times as much worldwide and turned out to be one of the biggest cinema hits of the year.
The popularity of “Flashdance” obviously translated into the success of the song, which eventually appeared on screen twice: at the beginning and then in the most important scene. The song became a hit and dropped from number one on the Billboard charts “Let's Dance” by David Bowie, which already says something. The crowning achievement of this success was an Oscar for the best song. Moroder had already won one such award and did not even appear at the ceremony, but the statuette was received in 1984 by Irene Cara and Keith Forsey. She was presenting the award Jennifer Bealsi.e…. Alex from the movie “Flashdance”, and was accompanied by her, who was only 22 years old at the time Matthew Broderick. The singer later won a Grammy Award.
The great success of the single “Flashdance… What a Feeling” unfortunately did not translate into further major cinema or musical offers for Irene. Although the artist was still active on the market, she soon starred in a film “Hot stuff” alongside Clint Eastwood, but she couldn't count on bigger roles. She wasn't doing great in the music world either, and instead of recording hits under her own name, she sang backing vocals for Lou Reed. The singer complained years later that the reason for this situation was, among other things, sexism in the industry, because the best songs were not even given to her colleagues, but to her colleagues.
There was one more problem. When Cara accepted the awards with a smile, no one knew that she had a big problem with her label. The artist did not receive any money due either for the previous album or for her work on the “Flashdance” soundtrack. The company was selling the singer off, so Cara finally decided to sue the label. The case dragged on for years and cost Irene her career. The artist was convinced that the managers immediately told other record companies about the court battle, and the effect was that no one wanted to cooperate with the “difficult” singer.
There were also rumors in the industry that Cara had a big drug problem and was unreliable – just in case someone wanted to take a risk and offer her a contract. Irene ultimately won the case and received one and a half million dollars in compensation. The amount would have been higher if not for the mistakes made by the artist's first lawyers and the bankruptcy of the label. “For sweetness,” Cara finally started making money by broadcasting her music, for example on radio and television, although this happened only almost a decade after “Flashback… What a Feeling”, which shows how much money the singer lost. Irene Cara died in 2022 and was unable to rebuild her career.