JOHN THE REVELATOR

Depeche Mode

Seeing as this is the fourth single off the album, I’m going to do this one a little bit differently. I thought about writing it in Russian, but as I don’t know any Russian I thought I’d review the remixes instead as it’s easier. Why the remixes, I don’t hear you ask? Simple, the single versions are nothing more than the album tracks chopped up to fit on the radio, and as I’ve reviewed Playing The Angel already there’s no point going over old ground. Instead, let’s have a look at what some of dance music’s biggest names have done with these songs. First up, Tiefschwarz and oh dear, this really isn’t too promising. The Dave Is In The Disco Remix is okay for the first five minutes without threatening to do anything special, but it lasts for eight and the last three minutes are a bit of a mess, almost as if they’d promised to deliver an eight minute remix but got stuck after five. Come on then, Murk, it’s your turn, show us what you can do. Blimey, this one’s pretty good. Yep, I can actually see people dancing to this one until they realise it’s a Depeche Mode song. Unfortunately, Murk fall into the same trap as Tiefschwarz, this mix is at least two minutes longer than it needs to be and ends up dragging on. So, next on the list is UNKLE, and... it’s brilliant. Really, it’s fantastic. It’s that good that if Mute Records sent this to the radio stations instead of the single version, it’d probably go straight on the A-lists and make the Top 5 easy as a result. It’s completely rebuilt from the ground up into a faster, leaner, fitter looking beast with added guitars and honestly, it’s better than the original. For a remix, that’s the highest praise possible and it’s a crying shame that it’s hidden away on CD2. That leaves Boosta to bring up the rear, then and to be fair, it’s not a bad effort. He’s created a new tune (deep and dark house music, not quite Flip and Fill then) and bunged the vocals on top of it, and while it’s not as instantly memorable as the UNKLE remix it’s a bit different at least. After that there’s one more Tiefschwarz mix, but it’s just eight minutes of bleeps and old school synths lumped together. On the whole, this is one of those rare occasions where I can recommend a single purely on the strength of one track and believe me, the UNKLE mix is worth the price of the CD on its own.

BEZ'S MADCHESTER ANTHEMS

Various Artists (album)

Only one thing impresses me more than the selection of songs that Bez has chosen for this compilation and that’s the fact that, after all the things he’s done to his body over the years, he can apparently still remember as far back as 1990. I’m assuming he can, after all him and his band were fairly prominent back then. Now then, I told you this was an impressive selection, didn’t I? Have a look at what’s on the CD. Happy Mondays, the Charlatans, Candy Flip, Northside, Stone Roses, there’s some proper Madchester-era stuff on here and MC Tunes. There’s always going to be one or two songs that are enough to make you wonder if they should really be there (Blue Monday 1988? Hardcore Uproar?) and no matter how many times There She Goes by the La’s gets shoehorned into compilation track-listings, I still can’t stand that song. To be honest, I’d have been happier if Pop Will Eat Itself, the Soup Dragons or Jesus Jones had made it on instead, but on the other hand, Voodoo Ray’s in so yeah, all in all, I think I can happily recommend this one, and just to give you a hint of how badly this album could’ve turned out, just have a think of all the bands plying their trade in the late eighties / early nineties. One example – Right Said Fred. We’ve got off lightly here and no mistake, folks.