a-ha - "The Living Daylights" (808's Licence to Kill Mix)

"The Living Daylights" was a revolutionary installment in the James Bond movie franchise. This 1987 movie was most notable, in that it was the first to star actor Timothy Dalton in the role of James Bond. And of course, the score by composer John Barry is, as always, memorable.

Continuing on from 1983's "A View to a Kill", in which Barry enlisted British new wave band Duran Duran to do the title song, here it is the Norway pop group a-ha who contributes the movie's title theme. While this song is memorable, and powerful in it's own right, a-ha themselves recorded what I thought was a far superior version of this song for their 1988 album "Stay On These Roads". This version always seemed to me to be more focussed, and powerful.

So, for this extended mix, while I did use some parts from the original song, and also the 12" extended mix based from that mix, I relied most heavily on the (in my view) far superior album cut. At various parts throughout the song, and especially during the overly bombastic beginning and ending of this mix, I made use of John Barry's orchestral version of this song as well. The result is an extended mix which I think truly captures the James Bond spirit.

This mix clocks in at a leisurely 9 minutes and 40 seconds

Listen to this track on legitmix.com

Megamix: A-ha, Go West, Phil Collins, Teena Marie

My first installment is a megamix I originally conceived in my basement in 1985, thanks to a pair of casette decks and a turntable. I always thought these songs belonged together. Running at about 165 BPM, you have the 12" extended mix of A-ha's "Take on Me", the Indiscriminate Mix of Go West "Call Me", the extended 12" mix of "Don't Lose My Number" by Phil Collins, then "Alibi" by Teena Marie, a track off her "Starchild" album. The megamix then shifts back to the endings of the Phil Collins and A-ha tracks. I also overlaid the extra percussion on Phil Collins' track onto the a-ha track throughout the megamix too.

I chose these tracks, not just because of a similar tempo, but the key signature of these tracks I thought made them blend well together.

Running time for the megamix is 15:50

Download here

A-HA - Take On Me(McDoC Evo-XR Mix 1 & 2)

Running time, Mix 1: 6:40
Running time, Mix 2: 7:57

I've always thought that even the extended version was still kind of short at 4:48, so I stretched it further to 6:40 -- for remix version 1 (with the drum intro from the single version), then 7:57 -- for remix version 2 (wherein I rearranged the verses and used the intro of the extended version). Oh well, check these out if you dare. Comments are welcome. :)

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