Hard dance

Well... the problem with getting so much music so fast is that occasionally I end up with duplicates.  This is especially true if the same version has two labels.  I recently found out, by starting to be suspicious and listening to the two of them back to back, that the Yoda songs "Definitely" Original Version that I have on megamix 3 is the exact same as the Kai Tracid vs Sunbeam version that I have on megamix 17.  So... I'll have to replace the second one.  They were released under different titles in different markets; the Original Version is what the Tidy Trax release in the UK called it, for instance, although the Continental releases tended to use the Kai Tracid vs Sunbeam title; and of course, in Italy, another version was released that replaced this version with a Trance Generators version too.  In the UK, they also called them Yoda, Inc. instead of merely Yoda.

And, of course, Tidy also released a Lee Haslam version on a combo record with a Steve Blake track that is more Hard House rather than Hard Trance or Hardstyle.

I should have known, of course.  Yoda is three guys, one of whom used the stage name of Kai Tracid, and the other two of whom worked together as Sunbeam.  Kai Tracid vs. Sunbeam is equivalent to saying the Yoda Mix, which is maybe a little silly given that it's a Yoda song.

Of course, the version of it that most people hear is the DJ Scot Project version.  It's good, but the others are just as good, in my opinion.  As much as Scot Project is often quite excellent, I do think his place at the "top" of Hard Trance is over-rating him.  He was definitely prolific at a time when Hard Trance was really on top of the EDM scene, and he put together some really iconic tracks, both of his own and remixes of someone else's, but he's not any better than some of the other "founding" members of Wave II of Hard Trance.

I was recommended by Facebook to join a group called Hard Trance Revolution that has an interesting banner, suggesting that the Foundation of Hard Trance is Scot Project, DuMonde, DJ Wag and A*S*Y*S.  I can't really argue with it, although I'd have not ranked DuMonde higher than any number of artists active at the same time, like Cosmic Gate, or DJ Dean or Tommy Pulse, or those guys who created a bazillion Italian Hard Trance and Hardstyle hybrid groups like Tronik and Mental Miracle and DJ Kubrik and Digimind, etc. or Max Savietto, S.H.O.K.K., or... I dunno, plenty of others.  But I get the point.  And sure, DuMonde has some really great classic tracks as well as some great remixes, but I'd suggest that Cosmic Gate has more of both, even before they changed their format to eurohouse or whatever it is exactly that they're doing now.  (Maybe that's why they don't make the cut; they sold out?)