This review covers the house track Deee-Lite – Good Beat (Shake Your Body To The Beat Mix).
This track was released in 1991 as part of a single. It was released along with a few other tracks.
The track starts with a drum kit and a melody. A sample repeats a few times followed up by another repeating sample. A synth string comes in as well for a single note, then disappears. The sample and the synth element makes a return. After that, a melody comes in.
An additional sample comes in followed up by another. A mix of these samples plays out. The synth string returns before the melody makes a return. More samples then play out. The synth string makes a return for a moment. After that, the melody makes a return along with some more samples.
A brass element makes an appearance. After that, more samples play out. The single note synth string comes in for a moment before the melody makes a return. The synth makes another return before the melody makes its own brief appearance again.
Some more samples play out. The synth string makes an additional return before the melody also makes a brief appearance. Some samples continue to play out before the brass element makes another return. The melody returns joined with a sample before the track just ends.
I’ll start things off by saying that this simply wasn’t an impressive track. While every element does loosely fit with the track itself, it ends up being little more than a collection of sounds strung together with a drum kit. There just isn’t any real flow with this track at all. It’s as if the producers had a small collection of samples and just randomly placed them on a timeline. I can almost hear them say, “Hey, this sounds interesting, let’s put that there. Ah, that sounds interesting, lets plunk that down here. Hmm, didn’t hear that for a bit, lets copy and paste that there. OK, I filled about five and a half minutes, it probably sounds good. Press it, guys.”
I seriously get that feeling that this track was produced by someone who had never produced a track before. They are just learning the ropes of music production and familiarizing themselves with a sequencer and the available libraries. When this track is completed, you can almost hear the producer say, “Alright! My first track!” It sounds that amateurish to me.
I get that your first music production isn’t likely going to sound all that great. It’s all part of the learning process. At the same time, this was put out by a major record label and put on store shelves. A track like that just doesn’t really belong in that kind of environment. I would expect something with some polish and a sense of direction at least. This track simply doesn’t fit that criteria and should have been left in the studio.
Overall, I just don’t see any upside to this track. It sounds like a sample library randomly placed on a sequencer and set to a drum kit. While it’s good to get a start somewhere, a track like this shouldn’t wind up being sold by a record label and in store shelves somewhere. A general flop as far as I’m concerned.
Score
4/10
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
