First Impression by Dave Joy

It's possible—probable, even—that I have more versions of "First Impression" than I do any other EDM track, and for the most part, they are quite different.  And I deliberately ditch the "Edit" versions; I suppose I could have a couple more if I counted them too.

It's not hard for me to pick a favorite; that's clearly the Nomad Mix. But of the rest, it's hard to pick a "second favorite" and nearly half a dozen are in contention. Let me list the entire run of remixes. Fifteen of them (eighteen if I counted the shorter "edit" versions) are on the 10th Anniversary re-release, but then there are two additional remixes and a bootleg that I have too. You shouldn't have any trouble whatsoever finding full versions of all of them on YouTube and listening to them if you so desire.  I'm going to bold and red the ones that coulda been a contender, so to speak.

In fact, here they are all here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3rBWzgVK9hwqUNEHvXGHY9KOgCq8ONAB

First off, the "original release" versions.

• S.H.O.K.K. Mix—absolutely brilliant; the one that was famous from the original release, and all subsequent remixes borrow from this one extensively.
• DJ Loudness vs Dave Joy Mix—not bad at all, although not a top tier one. A bit of a laid-back hypnotic trancer rather than a floorbanger, although the track is famous as a floorbanger in part because of the S.H.O.K.K. Mix and subsequent mixes that were more in the S.H.O.K.K. vein.
• Original Skyline Mix—one of the more boring ones. The recognizable melody is buried here and not very distinctive. It has the typical trancey sound of trance, by which I mean that it kinda sounds hypnotic and repetitive. As opposed to the way trance evolved with the build-ups and drops that was the opposite of hypnotic. If you think about it, trance as it's become is a woefully misnamed style.

The UK release had, along with the S.H.O.K.K. Mix the following two versions, although you had to get them on different releases.

• Dave 202 & Phil Green Remix—This was on the regular release by Difuse, and it's a great version.
• Dark By Design & Sol Ray Remix—Another great one, this time on another label (Goodgreef), and tagged with the Limited designation.

There was a 2008 re-release, although both remixes are a little meh. The Acid Maniacs is the better of the two, at least.

• Paul Webster Remix—a really housey, trip-hoppy almost version. Do not want.
• Acid Maniacs Remix—converting the famous melody line into a piano solo that goes a bit off the sheet music may have been a bold move, but I'm not sure how much I like it. Other than that weirdness, though, the mix has a fair bit to like.

In 2009 there was a "Part 2" release. It had some previously released tracks, as well as shorter mixes, but it also added two new full length remixes:

• Michael Tsukerman Remix—also a little less "bangy" and more hypnotic. There's nothing wrong with this mix, but it does seem to be a bit non-memorable compared to many of the others.
• DJ Dean Remix—I really like this mix a lot too. I tend to think of DJ Dean as kind of a cheesy trancer in general, although he has some nice bangin' tunes. It's a shame that he kinda has that reputation, because he's obviously very talented at making this type of music, and I do really enjoy some of his other work too. The only reason this one kinda slips through the cracks are because the competition from other remixes is so good.

There was another 2009 remix, called the UK Edition, even though it was released in Switzerland on the home Swiss label. It does include the Dark by Design vs Sol Ray remix, and adds an additional three new remixes; although I'm admittedly a little bit ambivalent about all three.

• Diablo Traxx Collective Remix—I actually have sped up my favorite versions of the tracks to 150 bpm and put them in a different folder (although I have the original tempo files archived too) so I'm used to forgetting how much difference the tempo a remixer chooses can have. Diablo Traxx Collective raises the tempo and gives this a weird British hard trance groove. (Diablo Traxx Collective are actually two Aussies that live in London.) I don't mind that bouncy British style, but I prefer it on songs that already have that vibe to start with, because in general I prefer the heavier, darker German-style hard trance to the bouncier, bright and polite British style.
• Alex Mac & Zeebra Kid vs Nicky D Remix—another fast-paced British sounding (and indeed British) remix. It has that kind of British acid sound to it heavily infused, not unlike something that Choci would have made in the mid to late 90s from the acid trancecore kind of sound that was going on then. The crowd noises added after the drop to the break with the soaring synthline let you know what kind of track you're listening to.
• Yoshi Remix—I actually confused Yoshi with Yoji for a long time, but I realize now that this is a totally different artist remixing here! Still, it's a competent mix with that Aussie style that sounds like it could have come straight off the barbie with Steve Hill and Co., but it does get lost in the shuffle a bit because there are so many good versions of this song.

The 10th Anniversary release had all of the remixes previously released, and then added several more:

• Nomad Remix—the best one, no doubt. Super intense, and the added acid line is very welcome.
• Liam Wilson Remix—I'm a little bit ambivalent on Liam Wilson, although he seems to have gone through a phase where he was a big-time name. He adds an interesting vocal track, but it's not one of my favorites. Kinda housey.
• Philippe Rochard Remix—famous as more of a hardstyle artist, and this is a hardstyle remix, mostly. Although I also really like a lot of hardstyle, I don't know how well I like converting hard trance tracks into hardstyle ones—or vice versa, for that matter.

A couple of other remixes have been released as one-offs since then.

• Madwave Remix—Madwave is a newer Swiss artist, and a big part of what he's doing is remixing some older classic tracks. They're pretty good, but not the best, especially considering the large number of remixes to compare it to. Compared to the best versions, it's a bit low energy too, for that matter.
• Kriess Guyte Remix—a British guy, who released it through Grotesque Records, who have also made a name for themselves by releasing newer remixes of older tracks. Most of his stuff is more tech trance or psy trance, and this veers somewhat into that territory sometimes.
• Dermot Bateman Bootleg—another really great one by an Irish remixer. He seems to straddle the lines between techno, tech trance and hard trance, but those are all fairly closely related anyway. I kinda like the tech trance sound, but I see it as more like a subtle variation on hard trance rather than something that's really super unique. (Then again, all of these various styles are subtle enough that people who are new to EDM probably can't really perceive them at all.)

As always, I take my favorite hard EDM tracks and normalize their tempo to 150 bpm so that they can more easily be played back to back to back. Plus, many of the trance tracks are a little bit too slow, especially if they're a little older (but not too old; then they're too fast!) For the more modern sound, which crystalized right around the turn of the millennium, 150 is the perfect tempo to give them that really hard intensity.