It’s not that Europe has anything on New York dance -New York is second to no one in the “you want more bass?” school of advanced djing, it’s that dance is mainstream in Europe in ways it isn’t in the US. The big revelation for me was looking at the UK charts how completely dominated it is by dance music. Remixes are all over the placees but the Black Eyed Peas at the top of the charts sure aint a remix!
The result is the newly released Now That’s What I Call Dance Imports ( which can’t be purchased song by song on itunes but at $9.99 for 15 tracks is a great value) is both unknown to me and completely awesome. It’s a bit 2003 compared to Luca Venezia but not always. The Digital Dog Club remix of Pinks ok but no more than “Please Don’t Leave Me” simply adds a thick jumpy bass behind the track and it moves right through; David Guetta is probably the hottest DJ this side of Mark Ronson and his Blame remix of Kelly Rowland’s “When Love Takes Over”is a rethinking, the background loop is very 80s and seems to be coming out of nowhere and it fucks with the vocals completely: it’s a tour de force and I bet helped to make his name outside France. The James Ford mix of Gossip’s “Pop Goes the World” sounds ultra old fashioned and bass synthy but really soulful and great. MGMT, Lily Allen, Keane (Keane?), Phoenix -the dance mixes are uniformly excellent. Tinchy Snyder (the UK MC) “No.1” is one of the songs of the year and even better is Vince Clarke’s take on Franz Ferdinand’s “No You Girls” which begs the question: what took em so long? Nobody can find the rhyhmic hook on a track better than Clarke, he has been doing it for years and he does it here. Franz Ferdinand should throw boatloads of bucks at Vince and beg him to produce their next album.