Desperately Seeking Something

I love the 80s. Yeah, I bet you couldn’t guess. And here’s a great 80s song! (With a bit of 80s MTV thrown in at the beginning to boot.)

Ahhh, New York. New York in the 80s. Er…New York in the 80s with Madonna stomping around and posing. What’s not to love?

Yes, OKAY! So, I know Duran Duran’s hit was actually called The Reflex. But it could have been called The Remix. Oooh, how about if brought out a new version for 2008 and called it The Reflex The Remix? Hey, just a thought…

ANYWAYS, Duran Duran are not the reason why I’ve brought you hear today. No. Today, I would like you to study the art of the remix. Now, I’m not talking about dance DJ masters doing all sorts of wizard-like things with their computers and their decks to produce some stomping house tunes. No on that front too. I would instead like to bring to your attention a couple of DJs that go under the name The Freemasons. The produce their own dance tunes, but also remix a number of pop/R&B songs.

Yeah, so what, you think?? Well this year they’ve taken two songs that, despite being sung by “superstars”, are really very, very ordinary in their original form, and transformed them into something MUCH more funky. Take a listen:

1. Beautiful Liar - Beyonce & Shakira

ORIGINAL

REMIX

2. Work (Put It In) – Kelly Rowland

ORIGINAL

REMIX

Oh, and the original of Kelly Rowland song sounds like really bland R&B noise that could have been sung by ANYONE in the past ten years!

One thing I absolutely love about the new music chart system in the U.K. – whereby songs that are officially downloaded count as single or album sales – is that lots of random songs re-enter the charts. Technically, any song that’s available for download could make a comeback in the charts. So if enough of us bought Kylie’s 1987 hit, I Should Be So Lucky, it could reach number one again!

(Alternatively, if I record a song of me humming for 30 sseconds, and got it for sale on iTunes, that could officially be a song in the UK Singles Chart. The mind boggles. Really. You haven’t heard me hum.)

Alright, unlikely. But during special events or at specific times of the year, people seem to buy and download loads of past songs. So, for example, during last year’s World Cup, loads of old football songs made a comeback. (Like Three Lions, which was first released in 1996.)

Unsurprisingly, now it’s Christmas, we’ve got loads of seasonal songs appearing in the charts. The BBC News website has drawn up a list of these songs – top is Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You which has hit the dizzy heights of number 8 in the charts! Next we’ve got the absolute classic – and one of the best festive songs ever - Fairytale in New York by The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl at number 12, followed a good bit of 80s cheese, Wham!’s Last Christmas at number 23.

Here’s one of my favourite Xmas songs – Merry Christmas Everybody by Shakin’ Stevens. You can’t beat a man with an apostrophe in his name.

It’s winter. Dull. Dready. Cold.

So here’s Rio by Duran Duran, which is none of the above!

Continuing in the Neighbours theme (I promise this is only a two-part series – there’ll be a non-Ramsay Street video next week), here we have Suddenly by Angry Anderson. Ahh, a classic. By someone named “Angry” – what cruel parents?!

In honour of Bruno Tonioli, one of the two best judges on Strictly Come Dancing (which starts again this Saturday, 6th October, BBC1, 6.15pm – tune in!!) here’s Elton John’s 1983 hit I’m Still Standing. Bruno is one of the backing dancers in the video!

To celebrate the start of a new week (groan…), how about a classic music video? What better than Stefan Dennis’s Don’t It Make You Feel Good? It does Stefan, it really does.

P.S. Doesn’t his singing sound like he thinks he’s in Phantom of the Opera, or something? A teeny bit theatrical!