…for your delectation, courtesy of Miss Cherisse Osei 🙂
Sir posted this morning of a new remix of Summer produced by Gary Numan and his long-term collaborator Ade Fenton. It got its first play during the Roundtable segment on Steve Lamacq’s show on BBC Radio 6 Music.
CLICK HERE to listen to the show (Summer plays from around the 32 minute mark).
I, sadly, wasn’t really won over. I feel so bad for saying that. I had such high hopes for it…but it takes away all the beauty I get from the song. The song actually SOUNDS WARM on the album! The images I got with it. A heat haze setting-sun scene…a fesitval…slo motion bodies bouncing up and down, hair swaying about in the breeze. I know Jim sings of rain and lightning…but I rarely see that imagery with the song…and if I do…it’s a sun shower. Not a downpour.
But that is now what I get with the Numan/Fenton mix…a damp squib. A rain on my parade. A shading of my sun.
You guys know I love dark songs and imagery…but it just feels the wrong fit. An anthemic, bright, upbeat, warm, pulsing, thumping song…well, rained upon.
Oh, I wanted to like it! And as I was listening to it, I had this sinking feeling. The sinking feeling it was not going to be liked…and, well. Ouch! I do feel if the panel had heard the album version, they’d have not slated it like they did.
A shame. I think maybe if things had been swapped around? Had Johnson Somerset remixed this, and Numan and Fenton were given The Signal And The Noise, then…well, that could have been interesting. I do love JS’s remix of TSATN, don’t get me wrong! But the mix of Summer just didn’t gel for me. I’ll give it one or two more listens but…I’m not hopeful I’ll be won round.
Sometimes opposites attract. Juxtapositions work. I just don’t think it does on this occasion. But I MAY change my mind. Stay tuned!