First Impression

I've been pretty delinquent in posting lately, but I'll do a Friday Art Attack in a little bit.  In the meantime, here's a very nice hardtrance song I recently discovered, in many, many forms, since it got a 10th anniversary release with 18 mixes (and then even an additional remix after that.)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYTPeI7P2fQo6lyRpitn2jQ/videos

For whatever reason, the Dave Joy "Topic" page has the thing listed twice, but go through the "First Impression" videos (the green ones) and see which ones you like.  For me, personally, it's very hard to pick a favorite.  I discount the edits and radio mixes, as merely shorter versions of the better long tracks anyway.  I'm not a huge fan of the Paul Webster mix, which has a kind of Chicago House like vibe to it (and I always hated late 80s and early 90s house).  The Michael Tsukerman has a kind of classic trance vibe to it; a bit more laid back and less overtly hard trance than most of the rest.  The Nomad and the Alex Mac & Zeebra Kid vs Nicky D mixes have some acid overtones (curiously the mix by Acid Maniacs isn't all that acidic, but very unique and recommended nonetheless).  Philippe Rochard turns the song, as expected, into a hardstyle song.  The Skyline mix is supposedly the original, although the DJ Loudness vs. Dave Joy mix is also from the original release.  The S.H.O.K.K. remix is from the original release, and is considered a classic of the hardtrance genre. It's impossible for me (at least at this point) to pick a favorite version; at least half a dozen of the ones I have are in the running.

You can also check out the entire run of "First Impression" mixes on Spotify if you prefer to use Spotify to YouTube (be sure and check out the Madwave remix, which is separate).  You can also buy the whole enchilada at Amazon, iTunes, Beatport and various other locales. The price per individual track isn't great, but you can get the entire 10th Anniversary as a digital download for less than $6, which works out to about 33¢ a song.

In fact, the challenge (if you want to call it that) isn't in finding the versions, it's in deciding which ones make the cut, get added to my phone, or to my playlist of hardtrance "best of" hits.  Having more than half a dozen of one song is... well, it's not completely unheard of (ahem, "Acid Nightmare") but it's odd.  And then, we start talking about "Second Chase" or "Third Pleasure" or even "Fourth Joyride", where granted, the number of mixes goes down on each, but are still substantial, all by the same artist