ABC – The Remix Collection

Easy to see that ABC are club fans when you sample this package and consider each track in its context - i.e. the year it was released and the associated remix. Their trademark polished chart pop and intelligent lyrics give way to a set of remixes that - each in its own time - was EXACTLY what clubs were moving to at the time. How to be a zillionaire could be any breakdancers signature track with its hammering drum track and money obsessed lyric. The be Near me remix shows how a miss in the charts can be a cool club hit which it was in the up mid-eighties clubs. ABC gained a lot of success in the US and the poison arrow remix here has extra melodic twists that evoke 60's TV drama and a smoother club sound than the UK releases. Trevor Horn is of course the driving production force here. The Look of Love remix sounds like it could have come from the Human League / Martin Rushent remix sessions and the annoying vocal treatments and sample stabs spoil and overly date an otherwise great dub mix of an 80's classic. It is well known that core ABC Martin and Mark were doyens of the coolest dance floors and clubs as the later 80's fully embraced the emerging underground dance music explosion. Ocean Blue sounds like an Ibiza gem that might well have been served up by DJ Alfredo late in his Amnesia sets. In 1987 their remixes for Night you murdered Love and King Without a crown show that their tastes had tracked and foretold the balearic wave that washed up in the UK and into a strobe and smoke filled basement called Shoom! The last two tracks are absolute bangers from obvious ecstatic house disciples determined to ensure their remixes worked the then contemporary dance floors. This is a fine body of work that can be appreciated and objectively appraised in hindsight as fantastic remixes and an alternative document of a cool band that you always knew frequented the coolest clubs.