Eruption Happy Hardcore!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Update on yesterday's fab radio selection: This afternoon it's all gone happy hardcore!

In quick succession I have heard

N-Trance - Set You Free (speeded up - how???)
Chicago - If You Leave Me Now
Human Leg - Together In Electric Dreams

Absolutely smashing. 101.3fm, East Lunnun ("Big Up Da Isle O Dogs Massif!")

The "I Feel Love" Project, pt 1

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

Messiah - I Feel Love (7") [ysi]

A "project" inspired by a mental version of IFL just seen on the Royal Variety Performance, and also part of my "get your CD singles on to iTunes" project, but I thought this approach might be more inclusive. I'd love to see ppl chip in with covers, mixes, and songs "inspired by" (i.e. swiping the bass line of) the grand-mother of all electro bobbins. Obv contenders I have lying around include Curve's cover (from Ruby Trax, wahey!), Underworld's King of Snake, and that terrific Outlaws mash up with Higher State of Consciousness.

This cover by early-90s flash-in-the-pan Messiah is on the fun side, if a bit weak overall. Messiah better remembered for their Running-Man-sampling and totally storming Temple of Dreams of course.

Eurobeat!

[cis.livejournal.com]

greatest of genres! A pounding beat, a hyperactive synth or string sample, and the biggest hook you can find, and you too can achieve eurobeat greatness! Popular in Japan as nowhere else, it's the official and unofficial soundtrack to everything that involves cars that go very very fast. The genre is practically owned by the Avex Trax label, who run the Super Eurobeat series of compilations, which has been running since the eighties and will keep running forever on a steady rate of three or four compilations a year. There are probably several people in Japan who own every Super Eurobeat compilation ever released, all the way up to SEB 161, which came out in September.

Nearly all Eurobeat is made by Italians, who adopt a whole series of Anglophone pseudonyms - Giancarlo Pasquini, for example, prefers to be known as Dave Rodgers. It's basically an offshoot of italodisco that got faster and shinier and hi-NRG'er and generally... more special.


king kong & the djungle girls - boom boom dollar (1989; from the now-defunct 'that's eurobeat!' series)

namie amuro - try me ~watashi o shinjite~ (1995; japanese-language version of song originally released by 'lolita', aka Ann Lee; started Amuro's career.)

norma sheffield - maybe tonite (1997; real name francesca contini obviously not glamorous enough)

edo boys - no-one sleep in tokyo (1998; from the anime series 'initial d' that revived eurobeat's popularity in the late nineties)

every little thing - sure (eurolovers remix) (2001; ELT tend to soft-rock ballads but have both a eurobeat remix album and a trance remix album)

kevin johnson - never gonna give you up (2004; okay it is just a straight cover but!)

o-zone - dragostea din tei (eurobeat remix) (2005; we've all seen maiahi.com, right?)