DJ SAMMY & YANOU ft DO – "Heaven"

I thought I would have little to say about this entry but then some thoughts occurred to me.

When I was getting into music in the early nineties the battle lines were largely drawn between rock and dance music although with hindsight there was a division between music that was played on instruments and had lyrics and music that was perceived as having neither. It was a bit like two grumpy families sat in their back gardens both convinced that their neighbours were the rude unsocial ones.

Except that it did seem (at least from the `real` music garden which is where I was at the time) that the dance contingent were incapable of staying on their side of the fence, constantly stealing from rock and other classic genres in the form of sampling and sometimes straight covers. An example; What’s Up by 4 Non Blondes may be a wonderful example of bad rock but DJ Miko’s dance cover with a bimbo singer jumping up and down on the stage not only mocking the song but those who might have found something to treasure in the original.

By that was the early nineties. By the mid nineties Britpop was driving a rock revival and the Prodigy and Chemical Brothers among others were taking dance music into its maturity. And to finally beat my metaphor to death; when the Spice Girls set up their pop circus tent a few streets away the die hards in both gardens retreated inside and watched from behind their net curtains instead.

But I digress. It’s now 2002, Oasis have turned rock an interesting colour of beige, dance music is here to stay and DJ Sammy gets to number 1 with a helium voiced cover of a Bryan Adams song that was only a modest hit over here. It’s not great by any means but makes for a passable enough pop song, particularly for those with no previous context for it. Ten years previously it would have been considered an insult by many rock fans. I’ll return to that point shortly.

We narrowly miss discussing DJ Sammy again when he turned his attention to The Boys Of Summer which is a song I adore. It might be in my all time top ten. And yet I quite like DJ Sammy’s version as well. Not a patch on the original of course but it captures some of the essence of the original. Maybe the dance music magpies had matured as well.

Which takes me back to 1992 and another example of a Bryan Adams classic being danced up; this time when Rage covered Run To You. It didn’t mean anything to me at the time (I was eleven and didn’t even know the original) but I’m fairly certain it combines the vocal (albeit sung in a different style) with the backing from I’ll Be Your Friend by Robert Owens. However I’ve not found anything to confirm this but if it was the case it would be a genuine mash up hitting the charts ten years early.

Can’t let this go by without a passing mention of the Candlelight Mix, stripping down even further to just the vocals and soft piano and pointing at it saying “EMOTIONS EMOTIONS EMOTIONS EMOTIONS EMOTIONS EMOTIONS”. I seem to recall it starting something of a plague of these, to the extent that when DHT took on Roxette’s Listen To Your Heart the “unplugged vocal” version got more marketing than the dance stomper.

I’d written out a comment but Thepensmith has covered a lot of the same points (the changing sound of pop trance, AATW being at the centre of this change but Sammy being on Data instead, 80s covers, SchoolDisco) in a much tidier way

What I will say is that the change in my mind is crystallised by the launch of the Clubland compilation series in mid-2002 that continued very successfully for years. A simple name and effective marketing (avoiding naming genres and instead presenting us ‘The Ride of Your Life’) made it the All Around the World-era trance equivalent to the Euphoria series which had only begun in 1999 but had spawned loads of editions already, with their best days already behind them.

Looking back at SchoolDisco.com a lot of fuss seems to have been made about their popularity beating out the superclubs when they were at a low ebb. If you look at the Ministry of Sound and Cream compilations in this era its quite evident how far both brands had gone from making albums that represented the club. Ministry of Sound ditched named DJs the previous year, with the stocking up of hits on The Annual 2002 (2001) that annoyed many not even preparing for The Annual 2003 (2002), led of course by Heaven, and where the Scooter, hard house, AATW and 80s covers made it much reviled release by those still wanting something more like the earlier Annuals. Cream on the other hand demonstrated the new sound with Cream Trance Anthems 2003, a one-off flop that killed the Anthems series dead.

Heaven is considerably better than the Sax Brothers’ Careless Whisper or The Sound Bluntz’ Billie Jean, but I don’t love it nor the Boys of Summer a great deal – very flash with some nice noises but not either particularly melancholy or irreverently banging for me. Though DJ Sammy was certainly a likeable chap as seen on his Never Mind the Buzzcocks appearance where Lamarr spent the whole show remarking how sweet he was, and Heaven is certainly a worthy choice for the final trance number one (for years and years at least, though the elements of the genre do figure prominent in a bunny not that far away now). I’ll give it a 5.

I was actually trying to establish whether Run To You by Rage is indeed a mash up with I’ll Be Your Friend. I’m convinced it is but can’t seem to find verification anywhere online. Given that it was a top five hit and ahead of its time you’d think somebody somewhere would have noticed.

If anybody is interested; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOcgscShqZg Run To You by Rage. As a Bryan Adams dance cover it’s far better than DJ Sammy and I’m not entirely sure I wouldn’t give it the nod over the original.

And this is I’ll Be Your Friend by Robert Owens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34_TnLsXxEI Chart anoraks might know that this originally spent 2 weeks at the bottom rung of no 75 gaining an honorable mention in Guiness Hit Singles least successful artists but a later re-mix that hit 26 removed the distinction.

But is it a mash up? There’s something oddly similar about the synth riff and the way the backing keeps rising behind the song but it may just be me.

This still gets a run from me on a regular basis. I reckon the vocals are better than the mix, but it works for me.

As an aside, the candlelight mix seemed to get a pretty regular play here as well.

And I remember the atrocious 9/11 remix (with the US radio programmer who dubbed his (?) little girl’s voice) over the top of the Candlelight mix interspersed with clips of “I miss you Daddy” and various other things. That seemed to make its way across to New Zealand pretty quickly for what was seemingly a 1-year anniversary for September 11 piece.

Long time lurker, first time poster, so be nice 🙂

A lot of my points have been raised by others, but I think it’s important to note that dance music was going through an identity crisis in 2002/2003. Dance music had been around since the late 80s, and the early 2000s was the first time that the over commercialisation of the genre became all too apparent. This, plus the fact that older ravers were starting to wind their partying down, caused a crisis in dance music, resulting in the closure of several superclubs in 2002 (Cream being the highest profile).

However, trance was still a Big Thing on mainland Europe, and ‘Heaven’ was one of the major success stories. Released in late 2001, it suprisingly took almost a year for the track to eventually top the UK charts. Perhaps the move to the School Disco era of clubbing helped its ascent.

To me at the time, ‘Heaven’ showed just how far dance music had fallen. Crass, lurid and out-dated, this was trance paint-by-numbers that could just as easily been Flip & Fill, Fragma, Lasgo or Ian Van Dahl. This doesn’t sound so bad to me now, but I still can’t listen to it without turning my nose up, purist that I am, so I would stretch to a 3.

Earlier charting mash-ups (based on a strict definition of one track’s music with another track’s vocal without any re-recording) include The Source ft. Candi Staton’s 1990 release of ‘You Got The Love’ with the story behind it particularly unusual (bearing in mind the pre-‘Your Love’ version first came out in ’86). Comments on ‘Just Be Good To Me’ and Gabrielle’s ‘Dreams’ as two Sort-Of-mash-ups covered this topic too iirc

Although the rolling Korg-wind (or whatever) hook is very similar Rage did not sample Robert Owens directly. I’ve had, um, four submissions approved by whosampled.com now so let us hope I knows of what I speak.

As for DJ Sammy, I think this was the first time I preferred a beatless ‘unplugged’ version to the primary dance mix. A revolting development. 4

It only just occurred to me that the Candlelight Mix is also the title of the A side mix of Ground Level’s ‘Dreams Of Heaven’ single which charted outside the Top 40 in January 1993. Just throwing that in there for the presumed coincidence and also it’s a pretty good slice of vocal Eurodance from that sound’s peak period.

Possibly another reason for the trend of ‘chilled out’ versions of dance tracks was the increased viability of getting them into TV shows at the time to soundtrack emotional scenes – thinking of youth soaps at the time like As If and Hollyoaks. The likes of Massive Attack and Lamb might have done quite well out of this too although no idea what sort of royalties a few seconds of ‘Teardrop’ or ‘Gabriel’ would actually yield.

Whenever I hear this song I’m reminded of a short bit by a comedian/musician (though I’ve forgotten their name, sorry) that does the lyrics slow and meaningful John Lewis piano style…

Baby you’re all that I want
When you’re lying here in my arms
I’m finding it hard to believe
You’re eleven

All I can think of when I listen to the synth and drum settings here is ‘They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard’ which I think I enjoy marginally more than this track

Loved this track as a youth, and today still, though not repeat listens.

This was my introduction to the song, and while I like the Bryan Adams original, this is a great alternative version.

Loved the vocals on this version, clear and powerful.