weekenditty : "Shake It Out (Benassi vs. MAJR edit)" - Florence + The Machine

First, do yourself a favor and download it:

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I have been working on this for a few days, and finally finished it last night. You see, I love Benny Benassi. He is the godfather of electro-dance, in my opinion. And, Florence Welch (of Florence + The Machine) is the strongest female voice I've ever heard live, with a style all her own- despite how influenced it is by the greats in music (see: Björk, Thom Yorke, Damien Rice, Tori Amos, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, etc.).

When I heard that Benassi was sanctioned to make one of the official remixes of Florence's new (soon to be massive hit) track, Shake It Out, I basically creamed my jeans. When getting the track a few days ago, I was highly impressed, but knew that the track needed to be fixed to play it live. The original, much like Florence's sound, shoots in two very dichotomous directions: the soft and atmospheric vs. the loud passionate explosion. In a club, that doesn't work with a crowd that hates a buzzkill, even if it is Florence's beautiful voice and Benassi's delicate synths doing the killing.

So, I took this:

And made it into this:

And this is what it sounds like:

Shake It Out (Benny Benassi vs. DJ MAJR edit) - Florence + The Machine by MAJRmusic

First, the tempo had to be increased toward a more raw house beat (from 126 to 128). Putting it at 128 means that the window to further increase it to 130 is available in a club setting (very important to me). I then cut up the introduction and mixed it with pieces of the track from various places. I wanted the song to flow properly into the vocals after 30 seconds, and I wanted the final 30 seconds to be a mirror. I then manipulated the levels and the placement of the backbeat, so that it could always shake your ass while it's playing, even when her voice is soft and introspective. To dictate momentum and prevent boredom (of me and my audience), I cut the rest of the track up (deleted any fluff) and made sure that it was always a part of one giant movement, while also creating enough explosion to provoke the proper dance-your-face-off essence (R.I.P. SHIFT). (There are a lot more little things here and there that I did- with bass and output levels, etc.- but I won't bore you with all that jazz).

That's the thing many DJs forget: what it feels like to be on the floor, feeling every beat and soaking in sensitive melodic aspect into your permeable eardrums. I'm not the greatest DJ in the world - nor do I ever care to be - I just want to be moved to fucking dance and be inspired in my own release.

Defend your ears.

Expect more of your stimuli.

Shake it out.

It is also worth mentioning that this song is highly inspiration to me, or anyone, who has ever had a terrible run of luck, felt down on oneself, unstoppably masochistic, and unreasonably self-critical. Shake it out, y'all. And, do it on the dancefloor.