Nneka - Shining Star (Joe Goddard Remix)

Joe Goddard off of Hot Chip is something of a go-to guy for ace remixes right now, even more so when he teams up with a slick urban-pop vocalist. We loved his rework of Delilah's Love You So, and his take of Nneka's Shining Star offers more of the same trippy delights. There's touches of the tribal in the rhythmic looseness of the full nine minute version's collective soundscape, pieced together amidst rubbery basslines and deliciously retro handclaps. It's like some long lost club cut from the mid 90s, resurfaced on some dusty 12'' vinyl and given a quick contemporary re-dress. The result is intense, thoughtful and brimming with a smooth soulfulness which dishes up a plethora of production magic with each passing minute.

The Saturdays - Forever Is Over (Deadmau5 Mash-Up Mix)

Another week, another delving dip into YouTube for a Saturdays mash-up. This time, I found this exceedingly good mix between Forever Is Over and Deadmau5's Ghosts N Stuff. And it really works, turning the Saturdays' feisty pop number into a sprawling, epic club anthem.

And while we're on the topic, this interpolation of The Saturdays' Just Can't Get Enough with the Depeche Mode original is amazing.

Alexandra Burke - Elephant (Remix)

Alexandra Burke - she's been away a while, but any pop fan worth their salt knows that the wait will (fingers crossed) be worth it. You see, Alexandra Burke, for my money anyway, remains pretty much the best winning contestant from X Factor ever.

Bad Boys, Broken Heels, All Night Long - one of the best runs of singles in recent pop history - hell, even her perfunctory winner's single ballad was rather good; her cover of Hallelujah remains to this date one of the more tolerable songs to be released straight off the back of the show.

And so now we turn to the first single from her eagerly anticipated second album. For the moment, all we have of Elephant is this remix snippet premiered on Pete Tong's Radio 1 dance show, but from what you can make out, all the hooks are in place and it seems to be shaping up to be quite the 'banger'. We approve!

Elephant (Remix) by msc12

The Saturdays - Forever Is Over (Lake Aurora dub-step remix)

What with The Saturdays delving into dub-step on their latest album On Your Radar (like everyone else in pop seems to be doing at the moment) someone called Lake Aurora seems to have hit upon the idea of giving one of their older hits (the brilliant Forever Is Over) a dub-step rework - the results are pretty decent!

And while we're on the topic of Saturdays remixes, this pitch-shifted male vocal version of All Fired Up entertained and amused me in equal measures. Basically, imagine the track as done by a boyband...

Oh My! - Dirty Dancer (Unicorn Kid Mix)

When do you get when you combine everyone's favourite flirty new pop duo with one of the best remixers out there? Yup, that's right - it's the rave-tastic Unicorn Kid mix of Oh My!'s Dirty Dancer.

If you've never heard a Unicorn Kid mix before, basically imagine a game of 8-bit Super Mario kicking off at your local night-club. Bleepy synths ahoy as the Oh My! girls' vocals are stretched and cut and pasted all over the place, transforming their gritty, feisty anthem into a tropical-sounding bit of bonkers dance-pop awesomeness.

We love it.

Nicola Roberts - Beat of My Drum (Rock Version)

One of my favourite things about music is that sometimes, out of the blue, a track is just given a completely new lease of life - this is one of those occasions.

I've had Nicola's Beat of My Drum on my iPod pretty much all summer now, but hearing this rock version of it makes me want to knock it out on repeat all over again. In short, it's the song you already know and love, but with a load of noisy guitars shoved on top.

If you thought the original was just that little bit too short, listen up - this version is four minutes long! The mid-song break-down is extended, and considering that was one of the best bits of the original, this is obviously all kinds of amazing.

For me, Beat of My Drum kind of always had it in it for this kind of take on it - it's powerful, it's out-there, it's the kind of track you yell out at the top of your voice; whether that be at a festival, a club, or just in your bed-room. It's an outpouring of emotion, a catharsis, a purging of every angst and bad feeling that's playing on your mind that day.

Basically, Nicola + guitars = one hell of a rocking track. We like this a lot.

The Saturdays All Fired Up (Xenomania Extended Mix) + iPhone app!

What could be even better than The Saturdays smoking hot new single All Fired Up? An extended version, that's what!

In the hands of production wizards Xenomania, the prospect of a good old fashioned 'Extended' version was tantalisingly good, but hearing the track in all six minutes of its grandiosity, it's mind-blowingly amazing.

My favourite bit is still Una's 'Keep me on your radar!' bit, now teased generously out into a full-on whirpool of sultry vocals and relentless synth energy.

What's more, to accompany this suitably dancey Saturdays single, you can now remix some of the girls' biggest hits on the official Saturdays remix app, available on iTunes!

Get mixing!

Introducing... The Sanfernando Sound

Welcome to the world of Jason Sieu Persad, AKA The Sanfernando Sound. The producer has been making waves recently with his slick re-works of tracks by Two Door Cinema Club, Starlings and Anoraak.

The charm of Jason's takes on the tracks is that they remain respectful of the originals - Take the What You Know mix, all the hooky guitar riffs that made the song such an immense radio hit remain, now added to surging waves of static and funky synth basslines.

The over-riding sound is telling of The Sanfernado Sound's chief influences - Jason cites Tears For Fears, Pet Shop Boys, Blancmange and New Order amongst his favourite bands, and we don't need to tell you how amazing they all are. That big, bold shine of the 80s is everywhere on these remixes; with a single click of a retro drum machine you're tipped back into a world of neon and day-glo bliss.

With support from International DJ magazine and BBC 6 Music, The Sanfernando Sound is on the rise, and just like the wave of eighties glamour it channels, it's sweeping up more and more fans wherever it goes. Time to grab your best dancing shoes and join in.


Two Door Cinema Club - What You Know - The Sanfernando Sound REMIX by The Sanfernando Sound

Example - Changed The Way You Kissed Me

I saw a brilliant interview with Example on T4 over the weekend where he revealed the inspiration for Changed The Way You Kissed Me came ready made as a line from hit teen soap Hollyoaks. Now, if you're searching for a distilled half hour shot of modern pop culture to inject your latest smash hit with, you could do a lot worse than look at Hollyoaks.

Flick it on casually and you're sure to find a fair share of passionate affairs, shady dealings and booze fuelled student parties. All rather exciting, no? Either way, it makes for a powerful start-point to launch your audio assault.

Example's latest single represents then, an even more intense concoction of everything life in the fast lane has to offer. The super strong espresso of clubland culture, if you will. A steamy, piston-like beat and dayglo rave synths pummel you into submission; if you thought Example's standout single Kickstarts packed a punch last year, just wait till you hear Changed The Way You Kissed Me.

Dizzying, hypnotic, Example's macho boasts fuel this track with a real tang of danger and combativeness; 'I've never been afraid of the highest heights... I've never been afraid of the wildest fights'. The song literally throws itself at you, bouncing off the walls like it's just downed a Red Bull four-pack.

Example always was a dab hand at knocking out this kind of catchy anthemic dancefloor stormer, but this is next level stuff. His recent collaboration with Wretch 32 highlighted just how powerful an effect an Example-penned melody can have on your sales - Unorthodox saw itself shooting effortlessly into the UK top 5, all the while enjoying mass airplay across the UK.

The highest heights of British pop? Example is right there, and he's there to stay.

Changed The Way You Kissed Me is released on the 5th June with a comprehensive remix package featuring re-works of the track by Kris Menace and Steve Smart/Westfunk.

Zoe Badwi - Freefallin'

As the summer creeps in, you can always count on the dance world to begin hotting up, shuffling their deck of cards and dealing the first hand of records to soundtrack the summer nights. There are changing trends and shifting scenes to bear in mind, but there will always be reliable formulas to stick to when you want a hit record on your hands.

Enter Zoe Badwi. The Australian singer-songwriter started her career in modelling and TV adverts for things like Mars Bars (yum) as well as being part of a girl group. The usual sorts of things you can expect for a trendy popstar.

And so we come to her new single Freefallin', which is already a top 10 hit in her native Australia as well as being certified platinum. Impressive. Anyway, the track is your standard, anthemic, super-uplifting dance-pop fare and sounds a LOT like When Love Takes Over - meaning it sounds very good, if not the most original record on the block. What it does do is showcase Zoe's rather impressive vocals; she can certainly hit all the high notes a track like this demands as well as packing some real power and grit that helps set her up as a proper popstar in her own right rather than just a faceless dance diva.

'It's all good, I'm alright', she sings in the chorus - well, with that platinum accolade under her belt already, things definitely seem to be going more than 'alright' for Zoe at the moment, and if she can translate that success to over here, Freefallin' could very well be the soundtrack to your summer too - the UK single release featuring remixes by MotoBlanco and WAWA.

Freefallin' is released on the 30th May.

Depeche Mode - Puppets (Royksopp Remix)

With the absolutely brilliant new Personal Jesus mixes being made available for download on iTunes last week, Depeche Mode now treat us to another of the exciting new versions from their upcoming remix album.

This time, instead of a well known single, they've gone for an album track from their debut LP. It's a good'un though. Puppets has always been a personal favourite of mine and the Royksopp mix plays gently with it, approaching it in a similarly contemporary manner as the Personal Jesus mixes were done in. Things take on a more subtle note here though and the vocals seem every so slightly tweaked, again, to bring them up to date.

Linkin Park - Iridescent

Linkin Park have a long history with the Transformers films; contributing What I've Done and New Divide to the soundtracks of the previous two movies. It's a strategy that's worked well for the band with What I've Done becoming the band's highest charting UK hit when it reached Number 6 back in 2007.

Iridescent was one of the standout tracks from their most recent record A Thousand Suns and is now being released as the album's fourth single in a new remixed form in conjunction with the latest Transformers movie; Dark Of The Moon. With its epic chorus and dramatic build-up to an intense crescendo, the track is rounded off with lyrics about letting go of all the pain and hurt in life. A song that talks about the 'cataclysm raining down' is suitably fitting for the scale and action-packed nature of the Transformers movies.

This mix of the track adds a new beat, giving it a slick, glossy feel, following in the vein of Leave Out All The Rest from the band's previous album Minutes To Midnight. Essentially a lush piano ballad, Iridescent shows that Linkin Park really are just as apt at the subtle, slow stuff as the all out 'loud' tracks. The new mix elevates Iridescent out of the far more intense, almost gothic feel the original album version had with its touches of church organ in the verses. In its place is something that has been cleverly trimmed and streamlined.

The big guitar solo is still every bit as epic, as are the chanty shouts of 'LET IT GO!' in the anthemic finale. In the final chorus singer Chester Bennington's vocals reach a real grit and passion; the kind of texture he's always done so well; conveying the lyrics with utter sincerity and emotion. It's all actually rather moving - which is precisely what you want on a Hollywood film-fronting track like this.

Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (nothing to do with that legendary Pink Floyd album...) is out in the cinemas on the 1st July.

Iridescent is released on the 16th May.

Wonderland - Starlight

Not to be confused with the new Sophie Ellis-Bextor track of the same name, Wonderland's next single following Not A Love Song is Starlight. While the full version of the track is yet to premiere yet, there are a number of clips of the track floating around on YouTube including a short extract of the studio version and a live performance.

My personal favourite has to be the dancey 7th Heaven Mix (who have previously re-worked The Saturdays' Higher). It starts slow and subtle before launching into a soaring, spacey chorus - properly epic in all sense of the word. The chorus of 'I wanna dance underneath your light, cos you pull me in like you're on my side. When I die in the day, I'm revived at night. Can I call you mine,' is just amazing; one of those real bliss on the dancefloor moments. And just at the end of the clip you can hear the beginnings of a dub-step breakdown. The mix just got even better.

What I really love is that as dancey as this version is, it retains enough pop sensibility that it could just as easily be presented as the radio version of the track. Fans of Girls Aloud and The Saturdays, if you haven't already checked out Wonderland then this could be the one to convert you.

In terms of the studio version, it's got a real drive to it and like Not A Love Song, really plays to the strengths of the girls' impressive harmonies. The band are currently in LA filming the video and we can't wait to see the finished thing!

Starlight is released on the 22nd May. You can also pre-order Wonderland's debut album here.

Sugababes - The Best of the Bs / The Complete Bs

Two new Sugababes' albums I hear you cry, where did these spring from? Well, they're not really new albums to be fair, rather an assortment of Sugababes b-sides.

Released on iTunes and Amazon, they actually represent remarkable value for money - enabling you to quickly many of the band's hidden gems, previously squirreled away on long-deleted CD singles (remember those?). 'The Best of the Bs' features just the b-sides, while 'The Complete Bs' features all these plus a vast host of remixes.

In the case of the latter, you're basically getting 100 tracks for £12.99, which is a Pretty Amazing Deal in anyone's book.

Check out the album tracklistings and buy them here: 'The Best of the Bs' / 'The Complete Bs'

Britney & Adele - Rolling Till The World Ends

Take two of the biggest tunes out at the moment and what do you get? An amazing mash-up. Of course, it's not that simple - and some clever soul has to put in all the leg-work coming up with the thing in the first place, but every so often everything will come together just right and you'll end up with an absolute gem like this.

As the first few bars of the Britney instrumental play, you're not quite sure what to expect. Then the Adele vocals kick in, and as with so many mash-ups, your initial reaction is one of trepidation. After hearing the originals so many times, this new configuration teases and confuses as you try to sort the two separate elements apart. But then you give in, sit back and enjoy... or rather, in this instance, get up and dance - for as the chorus hits, this mix is transformed. Flavoured as it might have been with vestiges of retro disco in its original form, the Adele track now becomes an out and out club banger.

You can't help but smile at how well the two tracks go together; the video splicing done here is pretty impressive too. I remember the awesome Take That / Eric Prydz mash-up from a few years ago, and this is right up there with that - clashing together two of the year's biggest hits in a melding of pop and dance. Wonderful.

Lady Gaga - Born This Way (Bollywood version)

Even better than the Country Road version. In fact, a lot better. Born This Way is given yet another lease of life with this genius take on the track. With added sitar, string section and a thumping beat, this is like Jai Ho! to the power of ten and just works SO well. The mix is by by brother duo Salim and Sulaiman and if you fancy more along the same lines, there's an urban desi mix too.

“We collaborated with Indian music producers from across the globe to show our respect and appreciation for our desi fans and music community,” says Troy Carter, CEO of Gaga’s management company.

"Gaga has truly fallen in love with India," added Anjula Acharia-Bath of the production company behind the new mixes. "So we’re helping her pursue this audience to authentically connect with both the huge diaspora and South Asia itself."

R&B (Come On!) The Rihanna & Britney S&M collab...

I'm not going to lie, when I saw Rihanna tweet about doing a collab with Britney, I had high hopes for some kind of amazing new song. Can you imagine it, two of the most amazing forces in pop coming together to team up on some mind-blowing future-pop track....

The reality is an S&M remix, featuring Britney. Not quite what I hoped for, but accepting it as what we're going to be given, still pretty nice. At the end of the day, Britney and Rihanna in any format is Pretty Damn Awesome.

One thing I really like is Rihanna's take on it all. This whole thing was prompted by a fan-driven vote where Rihanna asked who people would like to see her collaborate with. Now, considering RiRi has over four-million followers, that's a hell of a lot of people voting. Remember she got the fans voting for the fourth single off her Loud album too. Pop, run democratically! I like it!

We'll have to wait a little longer to hear what this remix turns out like, but suffice to say, it'll add another chapter to the already significant story of S&M (what with the whole radio edit butchering censorship affair). As for Rihanna, she certainly sounds excited, tweeting about the collab: 'Its BRITNEY BITCH!!!! One of the biggest worldwide popstars! U gangsta #EPIC.'

We're loving the use of the '#EPIC' hashtag!

Billie Ray Martin & Hard Ton - Fantasy Girl (Snuff Crew Remix)

Here at TotallyVivid we loved Billie Ray Martin's last single Sweet Suburban Disco so when we heard she was putting some more new material out there, we had to take a listen. One of our favourites is this cover of Phuture Phantasy Club's Fantasy Girl, dripping in proper old-school house vibes. There's great piano hooks, hand-clap beats and some real moments of chilled-out dance bliss. Billie's vocals are exactly the kind of soulful, hushed essence that you want on a track like this too.

In age of massively technical and at times overpowering dance tracks, this is stripped back simplicity - a real harking back to the old days.

Billie Ray Martin and Hard Ton: FantasyGirl SnuffCrew Remix by billie ray martin

Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus (Alex Metric Remix)

Depeche Mode's most famous hit, Personal Jesus, is one of those defining tracks of rock music - on one level oh-so simple, yet so incredibly effective. That thumping, rhythmic beat and that iconic guitar hook; all topped off with a killer chorus.

So how do you go about remixing such a recognised track? Well Alex Metric's version, one of the various mixes from the band's upcoming 81-11 album, does a pretty good job. It's respectful enough to the original - leaving many of the key elements like the beat and guitar intact - but adds enough contemporary elements to re-invigorate and revitalise this track for a new era. Indeed, in many ways this version serves to remind you just how good the original really is. A synth bassline and all sorts of bleepy electronic loveliness are thrown into the mix, a new sheen of gloss on what is truly one of the greatest songs of all time.

Personal Jesus (Alex Metric Remix) by dmremixes8111

Depeche Mode - Remixes 2: 81-11

Now this is what I call a fantastic CD tracklisting:

1. Dream On - Bushwacka Tough Guy Mix Edit (2001)
2. Personal Jesus - The Stargate Mix (2011)
3. Suffer Well - M83 Remix (2006)
4. John The Revelator - UNKLE Reconstruction (2006)
5. In Chains - Tigerskin's No Sleep Remix Edit (2011)
6. Peace - SixToes Remix (2009)
7. Tora! Tora! Tora! - Karlsson And Winnberg (from Miike Snow) Remix
(2011)
8. Never Let Me Down Again - Eric Prydz Remix (2011)
9. I Want It All - Roland M.Dill Remix (2011)
10. Wrong - Trentemøller Remix (2009)
11. Puppets - Röyksopp Remix (2011)
12. Everything Counts - Oliver Huntemann And Stephan Bodzin Dub
(2006)
13. A Pain That I'm Used To - Jacques Lu Cont Remix (2005)

Those new Personal Jesus and Never Let Me Down Again mixes in particular really excite me. As two of Depeche's best tracks, I can't wait to hear what contemporary spin has been put on them. Now, you might all cry that Depeche Mode only put out a remix compilation seven years ago, but to be honest, when you've been in the game as long as they have and got such a consistent back catalogue, you're pretty free to do whatever the hell you want. And as a massive Depeche Mode fan, I'll be first in the line to lap this up. Last year's Tour of the Universe was breathtaking, and with every album release Depeche bring out, I can only marvel again and again at the sheer force of power in their music. True icons.

Remixes 2: 81-11 is released 6th June.