song's tempo is 116 beats per minute. Music video The accompanying music video for "Let the Music Play", directed by British director Nigel Dick and released in November 1983, starts with Shannon in a dressing room applying make-up as if she is getting ready for a performance. She then proceeds to the stage of an empty theater where she proceeds to dance and sing the song. Interspersed throughout these scenes are shots of male and female dancers fashioned in dress shirts and bow ties warming up. The dancers join Shannon by the second chorus of the song and near the end, one of the dancers proceeds to take her in his arms and dance with her. The video ends with the dancers doing a choreographed routine while Shannon continues singing. Impact and legacy American DJ, record producer, remixer and songwriter Armand van Helden picked "Let the Music Play" as one of his "classic cuts" in 1995, adding, "A very powerful record. The first strong vocals over electro music. The first big hit that I can remember that struck me and paved the way for freestyle. Back then it was hip hop, but not considered rap." VH1 ranked the song number 24 in their list of the 100 Greatest Dance Songs in 2000. Blender ranked it number 465 in their list of The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born in 2005. Slant Magazine ranked it number 54 in its 100 Greatest Dance Songs list in 2006, adding, "Alongside Madonna's 'Holiday,' D.C.-born jazz vocalist Brenda Shannon Greene's 'Let the Music Play' helped redefine dance music in the anti-disco early-'80s, setting the stage for the troubled genre for the next decade. Producers Mark Liggett and Chris Barbosa, considered one of the founding fathers of Latin freestyle, merged the then-hip electro-funk sound with Latin rhythms, unwittingly creating the world's first freestyle song." VH1 ranked the song number 42 in their 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the 1980s in 2009. ThoughtCo ranked it number nine in their list of 25 Best Dance Pop Songs of All Time in 2018. Slant Magazine ranked it number nine in their ranking of The 100 Best Dance Songs of All Time in 2020. Rolling Stone ranked "Let the Music Play" number six in their list of 200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time in 2022. Charts Weekly charts Year-end charts Certifications Mary Kiani version In 1996, Mary Kiani