In this series I am going to be looking at lost pop classics from the last ten years that, in a parallel universe (where the Eighties never ended), would have been smash hits and on Top of the Pops.
Bryan Ferry 'You Can Dance' (Fred Falke remix)
When Bryan Ferry says 'you can dance' it feels like more of a command than an invitation: much like his previous paeans to rhythmic movement, be that with Roxy Music or solo. Both 1979's 'Dance Away' and 1985's 'Don't Stop The Dance' may only have betrayed understated, if pulsating, disco intuitions; however, they were also rather insistent.
'You Can Dance' builds on this pedigree. Its first outing was on the DJ Hell album Teufelswerk in an altogether more minimal techno form. Co-written with former Eurythmic Dave Stewart, the single version that trailered his 2010 album Olympia, is a more layered affair: echoing the sound of the 80s albums Avalon and Boy and Girls.
What is so special about the Fred Falke remix of 'You Can Dance', however, is that it makes the link between the digital sound of the 80s rock CD, and the crystalline perfection and teutonic rhythms of EDM. Fred Falke is, of course, the French house/electroclash DJ who first made a name for himself in the Noughties working with Alan Braxe on remixes for Goldfrapp, Kelis and Justice etc.
In the 2010s Falke branched out on his own: cornering the market in epic remix of rock tracks that would in most instances supplant the original in the collective conscience of the dance community. Gossip, Bastille, Two Door Cinema Club, Mystery Skulls and Metonymy are just some of the artist who have benefitted from his Midas touch.
Falke's magic is the ability to transform even the most angular new wave stomper into something more sublime: subtly transposing the rhythm from awkward indie disco to euphoric dance floor mania. The genius of this is that it posits Ferry and other takers, (including 80s interlopers U2 and Jimmy Somerville) into a parallel fantasy universe, in which the Eighties never ended: they just got more glamorous and debauched.
In reconnecting rock with its dance sensibility Falke also subverts one of the greatest impasses in pop history: the division between house and grunge that characterised the end of the Eighties. And it is entirely fitting that Ferry, with his legacy of electronic experimentalism in Roxy Music, should find himself at the vanguard of dance music three decades later.
Falke and DJ Hell were not the only ones to see this connection. Groove Armada summoned Ferry for a collaboration on their 2010 80s-synth inspired collection Black Light. And Olympia was also released in a 'collectors edition' with mixes of further album cuts by Time and Space Machine, Circus Parade and DJ Cleaver. However, ten years on, and it is the Falke mix of the lead single that has everything.
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