Måns Zelmerlöw - Cara Mia

Måns became a household name when he originally competed on Swedish Idol in 2005, finishing in 5th place.

Just in time for Melodifestavalen, he has a hot dance/pop single called "Cara Mia." Måns gives a great emotion-filled performance on this song. Totally amazing. PJ Harmony and Perra provide the remixes. PJ Harmony's Day and Nite mixes are exactly what they say they are. Both are simple electro-house. The Day one is a little more peak hour and the Nite one is better for later. Perra's mix is in the same vein as some of the hard stuff AATW's in-house mixers such as Friday Night Posse and Alex K do. It's nice though. Check this one out ASAP.

Forever Freestyle

Although only new releases are generally reviewed here, this is a new release of older classics. MusicSpace, the people that brought us such dance collections as Fired Up! and Pulse put forth this new collection called Forever Freestyle which contains various freestyle classics that have not been included on previous compilation series.

As expected, it's a collection of unmixed radio/single versions of some very carefully selected hits. This one includes 18 of them.

Here is the tracklisting:

01. Sweet Sensation - Sincerely Yours
02. Seduction - Two To Make It Right
03. Cover Girls - Show Me
04. Exposé - Point Of No Return
05. George LaMond - Bad Of The Heart
06. Lisette Melendez - Together Forever
07. Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam With Full Force - Can You Feel The Beat
08. Shannon - Let The Music Play
09. Linear - Sending All My Love
10. Company B - Fascinated
11. TKA - Maria
12. Cynthia & Johnny O - Dream Boy/Dream Girl
13. Stacey Q - Two Of Hearts
14. Nice & Wild - Diamond Girl
15. Exposé - Come Go With Me
16. Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam With Full Force - I Wonder If I Take You Home
17. Stevie B. - Spring Love
18. Rockell - In A Dream

This collection contains only a fraction of all the great songs that came out in what was the Freestyle era. The 18 songs that were chosen for this collection are quite good. All of these songs were pretty major hits and they span across most of the Freestyle era. No obscure album tracks or B-sides were chosen.

Some songs are in their original single or radio mix versions. A few were edited down from longer lengths for this collection. For some of them, it is very obvious that they were edited down, and for some it was not necessary as there's still almost 6 minutes on the CD that could have been filled with more music. Maybe even one more song. The sound quality of all the tracks is great.The only problems are with the last two tracks. With Stevie B.'s "Spring Love", it's not the same version that was played on the radio or the clubs. It's a whole other version. The vocals sound different and the instrumental production is different too. It seems that this one is from another collection, perhaps a greatest hits album where new vocals had to be recorded because of licensing and original rights issues. Then with Rockell's "In A Dream", it sounds like it came from a continuously mixed compilation. The beginning has remnants of another song. And the ending is faded instead of the cold ending in the original, possibly because another song was being mixed in at the end. Aside from those two obvious problems, the collection as a whole is so well done that the problems can be overlooked. It is worth noting that those are tucked in a the end. This is good for the casual listener or for the car.

The edition currently being sold in stores is a single disc compilation while the one sold on MusicSpace is 2 discs. It has additional songs, however, there's less songs per disc.

Randy Friess featuring VButterfly - Rotation (The Drums Are Alive)

Rising star Randy Friess is back with another club anthem that is sure to rock the dancefloor and elicit screams of joy!

The remixing talent on this one includes Alexander & Mark VDH, Klubjumpers, William Umana, Mor Avrahami, Therapy, Pleasure Center and last but not least, Guido Osorio. Guido's mix is to be released later on when the commercial and digital singles are shipped.

All the mixes are top notch and deliver various degrees of circuitness. A&M VDH's are a little lighter, KJ's is more peak hour, Umana's are good for afterhours, Avrahami's is a good set starter with that lovely synthy intro, Therapy and Pleasure Center's deviate a bit from the circuit sound and are more accessible for mixshow and house set play. Randy's warm vocals soar over this A&M VDH production. This one should be all over the place by Pride. Another winner from HMSP Music.

Ultra Naté - Automatic

Yes. This is a cover of the Pointer Sisters classic. This is just one of many remakes Tommy Boy Records has released in the last few months. This one is definitely worth listening to.

Ultra does a fine job of covering this song. There's a handful of mixes. But the Digital Dog Mix and Radio Mix are the ones to be listened to first. The Radio Mix is a nice electro-house track with a bit of an old-school, yet modern sound. The Digital Dog Mix is a lot more electro and harder. It basically could be considered the main club mix. Both are very true to the original while bringing a lot of freshness.

This one will soon be blowing up all over Dance radio and in the clubs so don't miss out on this gem.

Lenny B featuring Lyle - What Hurts The Most

This is the dance cover of the song Rascal Flatts made huge last year in the Country music scene. A rumored dance mix of the original never did actually surface, however, there had been much buzz that someone would remake this for the clubs and Dance radio. Sure enough, it's here.

This one comes courtesy of clubland legend Lenny Bertoldo with the vocal talent of Lyle. This cover is a stunning Euro-Dance track without all the cheesiness that some covers of this nature possess. It's very tasteful and gets better with each listen.

This one has just begun to gain momentum in clubland on Dance radio and in the clubs. A commercial release is to occur via iTunes and Beatport in the next few weeks. The edit and club mix have appeared on Promo Only and Ultimix DJ services respectively in the last month.

Ceevox - Music Is My Life

This song has been getting a lot of play from Junior Vasquez since last Fall. This finally got released a couple of weeks ago on the JVM label. This beautiful ode to music gets the remixing treatments by Junior Vasquez.

Ceevox's soulful vocal performance just soars over this amazing production in the Junior's Immaculate Mix. And immaculate it is. It's very classy, sophisticated and calls to mind some of the great house that came out in the 90's and early 2000's. There's a dub, instrumental, beats and a "keyapella" also. On it's own, the pella is just a joy to listen to.

This one really needs no other remixes as this one is the perfect blend of house and circuit and would work in both environments effortlessly. It's perfect. One of the best vocal releases from JVM in a while. Here's to hoping for some more gems like this.

All these mixes can be purchased at Beatport.

NSA featuring RuPaul - Computer Love

The search for love online is the subject of this campy new single fronted by RuPaul. The lyrics are relatively simple throwaway-ish. But this is worth a listen for a chuckle or two. This one is already a favorite of Junior Vasquez's. He has been playing this in his mixshow the last few weeks. Matt Piso's mix is the one he has been playing.

The CD promo comes with 4 mixes.

01. M@t!'s Lubed & Ready Mix (9:41)
02. Backroom Mix (7:21)
03. My Girlfriend's Out Of Town Mix (9:04)
04. No Recip Mix (8:49)

Matt Piso's M@t!'s Lubed & Ready Mix is quite housey and straightforward. It has that same sort of vibe that Fumi Kondoh brings in mixes that he engineers. The Backroom mix is much harder and darker. This one sounds good turned up loud late at night. The My Girlfriend's Out Of Town one is hard but a lot more electro. The No Recip mix is hard and electro too. There's some really interesting synth elements that are very "scary" sounding. It's cool though.

Overall, this one is good as a novelty track. This one lacks the timelessness that many other RuPaul tracks have had but it's still better than some of what is out there.

2-4 Grooves - The Way I Do

This is a cover of the Melissa Etheridge song from a few years ago. The original is a simple electro-dance pop track. There's a few mixes. For the U.S. release on Tommy Boy, Junior Vasquez has done a mix. His mix has a slight electro slant to it, channeling the original 2-4 Grooves track, however, it's got that deep bassline that Junior is known for having in his productions and tracks. His mix uses all the vocals and isn't repetitve. The Radio Mix is very short and concise. It's almost 4 minutes long, but it's a well-done 4 minute edit. The full mix is just a lovely extension of this. Alternate between the original and Junior mixes to keep it fresh. Look for this one in the next few weeks.

Diana Ross - Touch Me In The Morning (2007 Mixes)

The timing of the release of these mixes is impeccable! Diana Ross appeared on Fox's American Idol last week to give singing advice and coaching to the twelve hopefuls. And these new mixes of her classic "Touch Me In The Morning" help to reintroduce Ms. Ross to the masses. It hasn't been that long though. This song has stood the test of time and sounds fresh in its latest incarnation. UK-based Almighty provide the mixes this time round. They're reworkings of older classics can be hit or miss sometimes because it is often very difficult to recapture the "magic" that is in the originals in the new mixes. This time round, they have succeeded. The result is a stellar hi-nrg anthem. It is not over the top as one may expect it to be. It's very melodic and beautiful. The vocal mixes contain full vocals. Diana's original vocals sound so fresh that one would think that she had just recorded them yesterday. This is reportedly just the first of many other Diana Ross remixes that are in the works right now. There have been rumors going around about a full Almighty remix collection of Diana's classics. No confirmation yet, but if it happens, it will probably really awesome.

CD promo tracklisting:
01. 7'' Almighty Mix (5:59)
02. 12'' Almighty Mix (7:02)
03. Almighty Instrumental (7:01)

Christina Aguilera - Tell Me Misstereee

This is a mashup of Diddy (aka Sean Combs) and Christina Aguilera's "Tell Me" with Cajjmere Wray featuring Mina's "Misstereee" that has become a big deal during the last few weeks. Israeli DJ Offer Nissim has been playing this unusual creation at his last few gigs. This was just one of the many highlights of Offer's set during the closing party at Roxy in New York last week. Up and coming remixer/producer/DJ Ronen Mizrahi's remix of "Misstereee" was used as the instrumental for this unique track. It takes a short segment of Christina's "Tell Me" vocals and turns it into this cool dub. Vocal samples from the original Cajjmere track have been left in. It works quite well. A short sample of this mix can be heard here.