About.com Rating

Vendor's Site

There are sometimes when you get to hear a remix project and it's just kind of- well, sad. Take Me or Leave Me, from Rent, is one of those songs that just doesn't seem workable in a dance context, and several great remixers step up to the plate. It's just that none of them really connect, and I have to say that while I appreciate the effort put into these tracks, it seems like better songs from the movie musical could have been chosen for some mixwork.


Tracy Young's mixes (Club, Mixshow, Dub, and Radio) have an almost sambalicious/Ananada Project circa 1999 vibe, which is rather refreshing and delicious. Unfortunately, even in the dub the vocals (or massed loops of vocals) don't work with the production. It's nothing against Young's team of mixers, but the edn result simply doesn't work.

Jackie Christie, working with remix deity Fred Jorio, fares a little better. The Jackie and Jorio Club Mix has a merciless and punchy tribal sound, and if one starts the track around four minutes in, the vocals are easily excised. Their drumapella (somewhat of a misnomer, since there are no vocals whatsoever) is nicer, though more as a bridging piece than as something to actually be werqed to at a club.

Finally, Gabriel D. Vine's Mix takes its turn, serving up a pleasant pop-dance production that still is derailed by the inclusion of vocals which don't work in a dance context.

While it is refreshing that the Rent project is still being remixed and rethought for maximum exposure at this point, but why have all these talents work on a song that simply was never going to work at dancefloor BPMs?

Tracy Young Mixes - **
Jackie & Jorio Club - ***
Jackie & Jorio Drumapella - **1/2
Gabriel D. Vine - *1/2

Vendor's Site