The Story Behind Bob Sinclar’s “Gym Tonic”

There are plenty of records that define the French Touch era, but “Gym Tonic” is a lesser known classic, and the story behind it is one of the most interesting for a track of its time.

Released in 1998 on Bob Sinclar’s Paradise album, “Gym Tonic” became one of the cult records of the French house explosion.

Bob Sinclar and Thomas Bangalter

At the time, Bob Sinclar wasn’t yet the global superstar he is now, but he was becoming an important part of the French house scene. Around this period, he met Thomas Bangalter.

Bangalter was already one half of Daft Punk and was becoming one of the biggest names in the scene. Daft Punk became massive after the release of Homework in early 1997, and his Stardust project with Alan Braxe and Benjamin Diamond had just produced the classic “Music Sounds Better With You”.

Sinclar wanted to make a track using the 1970s funk record “Bad Mouthin’” by Motown Sounds. Bangalter worked on the idea and essentially produced the whole thing, and the result was “Gym Tonic”.

The production has all the things that made this era of French house so good, but also has a vocal sample from Jane Fonda, which was certainly an interesting choice.

The famous counting became the hook. “2-3-4-5-6-7-8” was repeated over a French house groove, and somehow it worked.

“Gym Tonic” started getting serious attention from DJs. It became one of the standout tracks on Sinclar’s album Paradise, and British dance radio started playing it too, but Jane Fonda hadn’t signed off on it.

Jane Fonda says no

The sample hadn’t been properly cleared for use as a commercial single. Fonda initially refused permission for her voice to appear on a dance record. It ended up on the album, but the track wasn’t allowed to be released as a single.

That was a pretty bad problem because “Gym Tonic” was clearly the track everyone wanted. The record not only appealed to DJs, but was starting to get attention outside the clubs too.

Two British producers, Paul Glancy and Duncan Glasson, made a recreation of the track under the name Spacedust, called “Gym And Tonic”. It was essentially the same idea, but the Jane Fonda workout vocals were recreated by a session singer rather than simply using the original recording. Soon enough after its release, it reached number one in the UK.

The French house record everyone wanted couldn’t be released as a single, while a British recreation of it became a hit.

But what about Thomas Bangalter?

“Gym Tonic” is usually credited as a Bob Sinclar and Thomas Bangalter collaboration, and Bangalter’s involvement in the production is well documented.

Bangalter didn’t want “Gym Tonic” released as a single, mainly because of the uncleared samples. Instead, the track appeared on Sinclar’s Paradise album, while Spacedust’s recreation was released as the single.