A while back, a friend and I compiled the most pleasurable of our guilty pleasures on a mix entitled “Headphones Only Mix,” a collection of those songs we loved deep-down but would never admit to even liking.
And secret it was — until I played it under the auspices of “dance music” at a party last weekend. As DJ, I subjected my fellow partygoers to one chart-topping hit after another, shouting, “Oh come on you know you loved this in fifth grade,” over Lisa Loeb’s unmistakable “You say I only hear … “.
And then it came to me. I scrambled for Depeche Mode’s latest, a collection of their songs remixed by various renown DJs like Underworld, the Beatmasters and Goldfrapp. No disrespect to the secret mix, but the Depeche Mode compilation was perfect, taking DM’s already dance-inspiring songs and making them even more danceable. Not every track succeeds in outdoing its original, but several of the remixes do reinvent the originals. Like Goldfrapp’s reinterpretation of “Halo,” most of the remixes use new beats and arrangements to rethink the original in a fresh and exciting way.
Archived article by Lynne Feeley
Sun Staff Writer