Saturday 24 September 2011

1998 Spacedust: Gym And Tonic

Now here's an odd one - 'Gym And Tonic' in its original incarnation was a dance track called 'Gym Tonic' by French DJ Christophe Le Friant (recording as Bob Sinclair) that benefitted from 1) a funked up production from Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter that was the bastard offspring of their own 'Revolution 909' and 'Da Funk', and 2) a certain renegade status born from illegally sampling Jane Fonda's voice from a workout video that meant the track could never be officially released. This remake from Brits Spacedust ditches Ms Fonda for a recording of an anonymous female barking out the routines and turns Bangalter's mix into generic compilation dance that's as flat as it's predictable. By consciously putting so much effort into distancing it from the original then improvements might be expected, but Spacedust in fact reduce 'Gym Tonic' to something that does actually sound like a direct lift from the soundtrack to a low budget workout video. Which means that whilst the novelty element remains intact, all sense of fun and mischief is crudely sawed out, taking any charm and appeal with it - who was buying this stuff?


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