Review: Armin van Buuren – Imagine the Remixes

A new phenomenon that quickly seems to have become the norm in the dance music industry is releasing a “remixed” version of your artist album around 9-12 months after the original release. Whereas I am a rather fanatic opponent of commercialization I do actually like this concept, especially since due to the ongoing demise of the cd single a lot of cool remixes never see the light of day on cd anymore.

Armin of course couldn’t stay behind and therefore now presents us a collection of his Imagine tunes that have received new treatments by a variety of fellow producers. A few of the tracks are already well known from major support in his live sets, but since so far only 3 singles have been released (the 3rd actually one only one week ago) most of them were commissioned for this specific release and weren’t even available as a digital download before. And in a way I think that shows; quite a few of these remixes sound like they were made just for the sake of having a remix, not because their producers spontaneously saw the light and decided to lift the specific track to a new level.

It’s hard to give an overall score to this compilation, because the elements vary in quality from brilliant to extremely poor. Unfortunately the average and poor ones form a majority. Because of the wide variety I decided to rate the tracks individually.

Face to face (Martin Roth Remix)
Now let me start by saying that I would consider an invitation to remix Face to face the challenge of the year, as it is by far my favorite track on Imagine and it is simply perfect as it is. I just love the drive and the overall oldskool feel of it. If Armin could only make an entire album of this kind of tracks I would be in heaven.

In current dancefloor reality however it doesn’t seem to work and maybe Armin feels that way too. Because apart from the first Imagine show and the MixMag CD party in the UK I never heard him play the track live anywhere. In Utrecht it just didn’t fit. Maybe it was because he put it in the wrong slot (it was at the end of the too long warm up set when you could feel that people were getting bored) and it didn’t match with the mainly progressive sounds he played till that point. The fact that he was already reducing the volume to prepare for the big sound opening didn’t help either.

Now as was to be expected initially I didn’t care for this remix, because like I said to me the original is perfect as it is. But upon second hearing I saw what Martin has done to it: he made it dancefloor suitable. With its seemingly slightly lower tempo and nice progressive bassline it will now fit in much better in the beginning of a live set and as such I look forward to seeing that happen. So hat off to Martin Roth for making this a very functional remix. Nevertheless the original will always be my favorite and I hope one day Armin will risk dropping that one at the end of a trancy night. Because I’m convinced then it actually will work :)

Score: 8/10
iPod resident: Yes

Hold on to me (JOC Remix)
One word: Terrible. This is the ultimate example of what I dislike about the unified generic JOC/Aly&Fila/etc sound of 2008. I already disliked the original, mostly because it was just a cheap Big sky follow up, and this remix doesn’t do anything for me either. As someone on the Armin forum so strikingly said: Adding your generic bassline to a track doesn’t make it a remix. I wholeheartedly hope this is the last we hear of this done to death JOC sound and that he now continues to make more tracks like Surreal, because that one is an absolute gem.

Score: 3/10
iPod resident: No

Unforgivable (First State Smooth Mix)
As the title says a smooth remix, that has been hammered by Armin since the summer. Still very enjoyable to listen to, as is the “Rough Mix” which is not included here but is currently available on the single release of Unforgivable.

Score: 8/10
iPod resident: Yes

Unforgivable (Stoneface & Terminal Vocal Mix)
Quite okay attempt by the German trance duo. The production itself is very slick and with the quality of the original song and the brilliant vocals by Jaren it results in a nice listen. The first half seriously lacks originality but after the break they get quite a bit more aggressive and the track really picks up from there. Should work nicely in a club.

Score: 8/10
iPod resident: Yes

Imagine (Paul Miller Remix)
Another extremely boring Paul Miller production. Generic trance bassline added, some of the piano work replayed and that’s basically it. The original track is one of the bombs of the Imagine album and has a unique sound, structure and atmosphere, which this remix totally destroys. I have no clue why it was made in the first place, it doesn’t even come close to the quality of the original, it has absolutely no novelty and therefore serves no purpose.

Score: 3/10
iPod resident: Hell no

Never say never (Myon & Shane 54 Remix)
Not outstanding but definitely above average remix. Functional for the dancefloor and better than the original, but this song will just never become a favorite of mine because it’s way too poppish for my taste.

Score: 7/10
iPod resident: No

Never say never (Omnia Remix)
This one really sucks. Not because it doesn’t sound nice (it actually does), but because it is a total rip off of the signature Blizzard sound. I really hate it when producers copy each others styles, especially when it’s something as fresh and unique as The Blizzard’s. This remix should have been refused for lack of originality. And if I were Lars I would be pissed.

Score: 4/10
iPod resident: No

In and out of love (The Blizzard Remix)
Lovely Blizzard style remix that didn’t get the attention it deserved because Armin played the shit out of his Durand/Miller mashup. Unfortunately I am rather done with this song after having heard it a million times everywhere, making me realize that I am also sortof done with pop chart oriented vocals in general.

Score: 7/10
iPod resident: No

In and out of love (Richard Durand Remix)
The fact that Armin had to mash this one with Jochen Millers Lost connection track to make it work basically proves where this remix falls short. Although it was already included in ASOT 2008 that mashup should have been the one included here, if only for history sake. Markus Schulz’ relatively unknown instrumental mashup of the same two tracks would have made a nice addition, since that’s the one I like the most actually.

Score: 6/10
iPod resident: No

Rain (W&W Remix)
Now with Rain definitely being one of my favorite tracks from Imagine and finding most W&W productions likable (albeit a bit repetitive) I was looking forward to hear this. Big mistake though, this remix is really terrible. It doesn’t add any new structure to the song and the replacement bassline is too predominant and has no soul whatsoever. When I first heard it live it sounded like a bad mashup between the original and Arena. After listening to it again a few times I can safely conclude that it basically is a bad mashup of the original and Arena. Doesn’t belong on this album.

Score: 4/10
iPod resident: Definitely not

Rain (Cosmic Gate Remix)
Now this one they should have called the Cosmic Gate Bloody Awesome Remix. OMFG how brilliant is this?! Remixing as an art form, taking the signature elements of a track and building a totally new foundation underneath. I think this is absolutely brilliant and makes it worth buying the cd for just by itself.

Having said that I just can’t believe this one didn’t make it to CD1. Oh I forgot, Cosmic Gate is not signed to Armada. Nevertheless W&W: you guys sure are talented, but take a good listen to these old farts: THIS is how it’s done.

Score: 10/10
iPod resident: Hell yes

Fine without you (Sied van Riel Remix)
I remember ElSandro dropping an early version of this remix way back mid last year. He said that is wasn’t finished at the time. Somehow listening to the first part it still gives me that same feeling. It sounds a bit like a mashup between a Sied van Riel track and the acapella version of Fine without you; the vocals just don’t really blend in with the track itself. But when halfway the whole thing lifts up and Sied starts to freak out all of a sudden it really starts to work. Overall I like this remix, but mainly because I really dig that deep dark sound that Sied has been perfecting over the last year and also because it couldn’t be more different from the rather terrible original version. This remix screams for a dub version though. Hopefully we will see one in the undoubtedly following stream of digital only extras.

Score: 7/10
iPod resident: Yes

Going wrong (Alex Morph Remix)
I guess I am well known for hating this song, not just because I think it’s way too commercial and pop chart oriented but also because it turned out to be the kickoff to a disappointing turn in Armin’s musical direction. So whoever they commission to remix it and whatever they make of it I doubt I will ever like it.

That being said objectively I can’t say that I am very impressed with this remix either, it’s basically nothing more than an altered bassline and some semi acapella vocal parts, with the bassline being of the generic trance type that I so royally dislike nowadays. People have been asking about it for months so I guess it’s good that it finally is released, but it’s definitely not my thing. If I do have to listen to this song I’d still rather hear Armin’s Universal Religion Mix.

Score: 5/10
iPod resident: Not a chance

Going wrong (Sean Tyas Remix)
Rather similar to the Alex Morph remix, but more polished in the well known Sean Tyas style. I am not at all a fan of his work, it’s all too similar for my taste, but in this case he definitely did the better job of the two. The arrangements are quite heavily altered which makes for good remixing. If he had left out those terrible vocals I might have actually liked it a little bit. Anyway I’d much rather hear his excellent new track Melbourne.

Score: 6/10
iPod resident: No

Intricacy (Thomas Bronzwaer Remix)
Equally disappointing as Paul Miller’s Imagine remix. Absolutely nothing new except a slightly altered more generic bassline and a very small restructure of the break. It’s 90% the same as the original, yet has managed to lose a lot of its power. Waste of space.

Score: 3/10
iPod resident: Absolutely not

What if (Arnej Remix)
One of the better originals on Imagine and therefore a handful to redo. I have to say Arnej showed his qualities here. He basically redid the entire song and yet managed to preserve some of the dark atmosphere of the original. Good work.

Score: 8/10
iPod resident: Yes

What if (Ohmna Remix)
Doesn’t reach the level of Arnej’s take, doesn’t offer anything unique stucturewise either but nevertheless pleasant to listen to. Slightly above average production, in the midfield of this collection.

Score: 7/10
iPod resident: No

DVD Review: Armin Only 2008

Although still in the middle of the show’s world tour Armin van Buuren has already released a DVD edition of his Armin Only Imagine performance as recorded at the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht on April 19th 2008. Here’s my impressions.

Package/design
The double DVD comes in a foldout cardboard box. Not exactly my favorite packaging as it is very fragile, but it is finished in the well known glossy black Imagine theme and as such very well executed and nicely in line with all the other Imagine and Armin Only related productions. The first DVD presents a selection of the live show, the second one contains bonus materials.

Track selection
This is one of my two main beefs with this release. At the live show Armin played 96 tracks of which 23 were his own productions and 2 mashups partly containing own productions. That’s a self-promotion rate of 25%, which is high, but not uncommon with nowadays superstar DJ/Producers. Now since you can’t squeeze 9 hours of music into one DVD obviously a selection had to be made. However when that selection turns out to be 30 tracks of which 20 are own productions, that all of a sudden makes for a 67% self-promotion rate. And in all fairness that isn’t a genuine representation of what a 9 hour Armin Only 2008 set stands for. Of course the Imagine tracks are heavily featured and so they should. But the additional abundance of older Armin tracks really brings the value of this production down. What we ended up with here is basically a combination of the Imagine and 10 Years albums disguised as an Armin Only show, taking the “only” part out of it’s original context and painting a rather incorrect image of Armin as a DJ. Among his fans the reactions towards the “Sound of Armin van Buuren” classics hour during the show were already very mixed, but in this DVD release it is really out of place. Anyone who wants to see older Armin tunes played live can always go back to the Armin Only 2005 and 2006 DVD’s, so I truly fail to see the need for these reruns taking up 1/3 of the entire DVD and clogging up space that could have been used for an additional selection of the epic new 2008 tunes by other artists that were played during the night.

Sound quality, editing and polishing
According to Armin a lot of effort was put in the sound quality and 5.1 mixdown and that indeed shows in flying colors, because both are excellent. Another thing that is done very well is editing the selected songs together. For example the way the end of Fine without you flows into the official show intro is brilliant. If I hadn’t been there and knew it was different in the live show I would immediately believe that is how it was performed.

Unfortunately there are also a few flies in the soup and some of them could have been prevented. Since all audio was recorded on a multi track all separate channels of music, live instruments, live vocals and audience were available separately, which allowed the studio engineers to polish up any little mistake that might have happened. In some parts this was done very effectively, for example the horrible intro crash of MC Stretch was completely removed and Eller’s guitar solo in the Imagine intro (that was faded in too late in the live show) is now nicely restored. The sound of the crowd however has been cut back so much that it really reduces the "live" feeling that the original TV broadcast did have. Also a lot of the live vocals have been doctored drastically. Actually Jennifer Rene, Audrey Gallagher and Elles de Graaff’s live vocals have been completely replaced by the original studio acapellas. They did apply different reverb settings and left out second voice vocals to make it at least sound a little more live than just replacing the entire track with cd recordings like was done on the previous Armin Only DVD’s, but still it’s fairly obvious that this is not the real thing. Personally I’d rather hear Jennifer Rene sing a little off key live than the doctored up fake live performance we see now. The woman broke her hip only two months before the show for crying out loud and she was already back on stage dancing and singing. Much respect for that.

As there seems to be some sort of unfortunate curse resting on live performances at Armin Only shows in my opinion the only sensible thing to do is simply cut the bad performances out. Audrey Gallagher for example, sweet girl, but her performance was sub-par and should therefore have been cut, simple as that. But instead they decided fix it up with studio vocals. They also left in Going wrong (which was a complete fake playback performance to begin with) and then on top of that they cut out the brilliant performance of Jaren doing Unforgettable. Why all that was done is really beyond me. Another sorely missed performance is Sharon den Adel’s In and out of love. Supposedly this has to do with herself not being satisfied with her performance, but to be honest I think she is the only person on the planet who thinks that, because literally everyone I talked to thought it was absolutely great.

One last remark concerns the volume of the overdubbed vocals. In the Tuschinski preview I already noticed they have been mixed in slightly too loud, making them sound a bit too thick on top of the rest of the music. Initially I thought it had to do with the theater’s center speakers perhaps being set up incorrectly, but on my own system I still hear the same thing, albeit less intrusive. There is actually a noticeable difference between 5.1 Movie and 5.1 Music mode. If your system allows these different modes make sure you choose the 5.1 Music setting for optimal sound quality.

Video/Camerawork
When I saw the TV broadcast back after coming home from the live show I was already impressed with the camerawork and the way the whole thing looked on TV. And since this DVD is based on the same footage this part is equally impressive. Could have done with a bit less boob and butt shots imo but other than that very cool. Sharing the costs of a large camera crew with a TV station was a bright move and it obviously paid off. The shots of the Jaarbeurs building that were used to create the opening scenes are simple but very effective and even a little arty. Very nice.

Bonus DVD
Overall I think the bonus DVD is a very nice package. The menu design is again strongly in line with the theme and comes off even better than on the main disk because of the higher number of menu options. The rotating sunrays are a nice touch.

Behind the scenes documentary
This is simply excellent, it’s coherent and there’s a good timeline. Sound quality is absolutely ace.

Discography section
Unfortunately this part is very poorly executed. It doesn’t display any release prior to 2004, it doesn’t show any single releases and there are multiple faults in terms of years of releases. By far the most sloppy part of the release, and rather embarrassing for Armada Music to be honest. Things like this could have been easily prevented if more attention had been put into testing and evaluating the final beta master.

Overall
Obviously a lot of effort has been put in this production and it easily surpasses for example what Ferry Corsten made of his Full on Ferry DVD. I also think it’s more relaxing to watch than Tiesto’s Copenhagen production. However as a reflection of a major Armin Only event I think this release is disappointing, mainly because of the over the top Armin-centric track selection and the botched up live performances. The nice bonus DVD makes up only partly for this. As a production it seems to be designed to please the masses and squeeze out the maximum amount of royalty money, instead of being another milestone in Armin’s DJ career, which it easily could have been. Come the time I want to reminisce that night in April I will most likely grab the DVD’s I made of the TV recording. It’s like having the choice between fake breasts and makeup or pure and natural; the latter might have it’s imperfections but it feels much better.