On Saturday night, I wrote about Mr Simon Dunmore of Defected Records. He was complaining that the Top 3 on Traxsource all being remixes of decades old records was symptomatic of a problem within the industry.

I happened to agree with him entirely, and I still do. Yet the more I think about this, the more I’m beginning to spot a certain amount of hypocrisy on Mr Dunmore’s part. His labels do release remixes of a lot of older material – not exactly at Easy Street levels, but they have been doing it.

And only last week, Defected announced that they’ve acquired the rights to “Groovejet” by Spiller. This song was bubbling in the background throughout 1999, and when the Miami Winter Music Conference came along in 2000, a frantic bidding war took place. Those were the days!

Ministry of Sound wanted it, but it ultimately went to Positiva. As an offshoot of the EMI behemoth, they were going to have a much easier time – let alone budget – to clear the Carol Williams sample. It was released that summer with a vocal version with Sophie Ellis Bextor and remixes by Ray Roc and Todd Terry.

Positiva’s licence expired some time ago for this and Defected signed it up. It certainly fits in with Defected’s business strategy of buying the rights to swathes of older records – but when new remixes start appearing of these records, Dunmore’s comments start to look a little hypocritical.

Do as I say, not as I do, Simon?

By The Editor

Editor-in-chief at Amateur’s House.

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