Dan Mei & Marc Johnce & CJRMix Re-Retrospective

I think DMF – now more commonly known as Dan Mei & Marc Johnce – first came onto my radar with their compilation mashups around 2008 or 2009. The best being the long-lost Bootrospective – a Pet Shop Boys mashup album that I talked a lot about back in the day, one of my favourite mashup albums of that year with DJ Clive$ter and CJRMix.

Sadly very shortly after release it got totally nuked everywhere due to a Sony/PRS Cease and Desist. I thought I’d played them on the podcast – seemingly not? Unless I tagged them oddly, I suspect the legals or other things put me off doing so.

At the time I thought the artists had objected, but it turns out no, it was a label/rights thing. And as forecast by my past 2009 self, you can now download the original compilation over at Bootleg Archive.

Now many years later,, a few months ago Marc created several videos of the standout tracks – one for my fave by Dan Mei & Marc Johnce – Land of Stupid (Pet Shop Boys – I’m With Stupid vs Genesis – Land of Confusion) which is still topical – and one for CJRMix’s Bad Heart (Michael Jackson – Bad vs Pet Shop Boys – Heart).

The latter hasn’t aged well for me now we know more about MJ since 2009 (that was starting to be known back then, so I’m guessing why I didn’t play that one, and MJ’s work is still mostly shadowbanned on the podcast). Still a classic mashup though.

Talking of which the third video is Dan Mei & Marc Johnce’s – Minimal Republic – Pet Shop Boys – Minimal vs OneRepublic’s far too ever-present Apologize – although back then the track was less overdone in mashups I give it a pass.,

Now I have to be honest: I struggle with anything with Apologize because like Coldplay’s Clocks/Yellow it’s been overmashed, overplayed, covered and remixed to a point I can’t really hear the song anymore? It’s a good mashup, and I think to fresh ears that didn’t hear 10 million Apologize mashups – it was like the Gayle or Call Me Maybe of it’s day – they’d love this.

It’s a ‘me’ problem definitely – but it is always good to hear Minimal in a mashup.

And great to see these Dan Mei & Marc Johnce tracks that many missed because of the C&D back online and alive again, definitely part of mashup history.