Episode #47 - The Best Of 2008 Mix Part 1 - The House Mix

Happy new year to all of the DJ Cruze podcast listeners!

It's that time of the year when I give you the "Best Of..." mix for the year that has just gone and apologies that it's a day late. The main reason for this has been trying to choose all of the fantastic tunes to put into the mix. It took me about 4 hours of listening to the great house tracks from 2008 to whittle it down to around 60 tracks which I wanted to use. There's obviously no way I can get these into a 1 hour house mix so I have decided to do two "Best Of 2008" house music mixes. This one is the first and it features the best house tracks from 2008 into one CD-length mix with no talking. Hopefully I've chosen some of the tracks you love too!

Best Of 2008 Mix - The House Mix Tracklisting

[00:00:00] The Ting Tings - Great DJ (Calvin Harris Remix) - Columbia

It's been a massive year for the indie band The Ting Tings and also for Calvin Harris as an artist and remixer. I loved this cheeky house mix with its infectious "the drums" repeated vocal. It sounds like a house track which has come from the 60s or 70s with its almost psychedelic bassline. A fantastic track.

[00:06:18] Harris & Spoon feat Sam Obernik - Baditude (Club Mix) - Toolroom Records

Dave Spoon is one of my favourite producers from the past few years and he's teamed up with Dirty Vegas' Paul Harris and awesome vocalist Sam Obernik for this killer house track. It's got a dirty bassline, some Spanish guitars and a quirky vocal. I love the percussion on it too - fantastic drum programming from those guys. It definitely rocked Miami and Ibiza this year.

[00:12:07] Tim Deluxe - You Got Tha Touch (Original) - Skint

A somewhat underrated track from one of the UKs biggest house music producers. Tim Deluxe can turn his hands to anything, be it speed garage, US garage, tech house or progressive house. You name it and he can produce a phat track around it! This track is just totally different than anything that came out in 2008. Great ethnic percussion, a chunky bassline and a really interesting vocal. Great stuff!

[00:18:22] The Whitest Boy Alive - Golden Cage (Fred Falke Mix) - Modular

Ah Fred Falke. How much do I love you? Well, not in that way but as a producer of the best house tracks in the past couple of years. Fred stands out from the pack with his fantastic musical abilities and unique production style. Taking a leaf out of the French producers handbook but moving it on to new heights. He takes The Whitest Boy Alive into a fantastic Moog lead funky house track. Probably my most played track of the year (...I'll have to look at my Last.fm account to check!) The breakdown almost makes me cry too! Shhhh! Don't tell anyone!

[00:24:52] Machines Don't Care - Afrojacker - White

Another great house track which pays homage to the old rave and speed garage tracks of yester-year. Machines Don't Care is a collective of some of the hottest new producers around like Herve, Trevor Lovey, Sinden, Fake Blood, Toddla T (and lots of others I think). This is a great percussion led track with a killer horn breakdown. I'm a sucker for those horns!

[00:29:56] Till West & Eddie Thoneick - Hi N Bye (Smax & Gold Remix) - Phunkwerk

Eddie Thoneick, Eric Smax and Thomas Gold. Three of the best producers of the moment. Team them up with Till West and you've got a killer house track. The breakdown on this one is amazing. Great strings and a cheeky disco sample in the background combines really well with the vocals.

[00:37:11] Rihanna - Take A Bow (Seamus Haji Remix) - Mercury

Probably the best remix that Seamus Haji has done so far. He's turned a rather dull R&B track (in my opinion) into a brilliant electro house track. I hadn't heard the original and I was so surprised at how he's changed the track - and for the better in my opinion. Three gold stars for this remix!

[00:44:56] Adele - Hometown Glory (Axwell Club Mix) - XL

I love Adele. She's got a brilliant voice and when I first heard Hometown Glory back in 2007 and knew she was going to be big. XL finally released this track as a single and asked the hot Swedish producer Axwell to do the remix duties. The results are just stunning. The club mix uses the vocal to great effect and leaves the haunting piano riff intact. If you're looking for a tougher mix then check out his remode version too as featured in my Ibiza Sunset Mix.

[00:49:20] Axwell & Bob Sinclar feat Ron Carroll - What A Wonderful World (Club Mix) - Defected Records

A somewhat contentious track in my charts this year with some people loving and some people hating it. I've been playing a tougher remix but I love the original too. Anything that Axwell touches turns to gold and this track is no exception. Great crunchy percussion and a killer breakdown combined with a soulful vocal make it a huge track.

[00:55:22] Max Linen - Neon Lights (Original Full Vocal Mix) - Phonetic

Another underground hit for me but I love this track. A very punk-sounding vocal and lots of 8-bit synths make it a great house track.

[01:02:07] The Montanas & DJ Roland Clark - Music Talking (Fred Falke Remix) - Strictly

Fred Falke is back for his second massive remix of the year. This is disco-house at its best. It's a simple formula - repeat the disco riff and "music talking" refrain over and over again but there's few people that can do this to great effect like Fred Falke. Combine that with some phat rhodes keyboard playing and some bitcrushed strings and you've got one of the biggest house tracks of the year.

[01:08:00] Eric Prydz - Pjanoo - Pryda

What can I say about this track. It originally came out at the start of the year and it went on to be one of the biggest crossover tracks of the year but still kept its underground roots. This track "Pjanoo" has made Eric Prydz one of the hottest producers in the house world right now. Anything he touches absolutely rocks and I can't wait for his Pryda album in 2009. Massive pianos. Massive strings. A killer synth bassline. A HUGE tune which has been caned by all of the biggest DJs around!

Right, I hope you've enjoyed part 1 of the "Best Of 2008 Mix" and I'll be compiling and mixing part 2 "The Electro House Mix" in the next week. It should be online next Sunday (11th January 2009) with any luck!