MightyREAL is a 15 volume CD dance floor retrospective exploring a very wild, yet musically elusive period in nightclubbing history: 1980 - 1988. This is when Disco, having recently been declared dead by disenchanted tastemakers, went underground to shop for a modern makeover. While on the down low, Disco was reworked into Dance Music.
This transformation was closely supported by a thriving urban BIG ROOM dance scene, frequently led by the eternally zealous Gay community. Each night a tasty stew of Disco / Danceable New Wave / Hi NRG / Eurodisco / pre-House, was served up to enthusiastic dance floor revellers by the reigning DJs of the moment. Some songs became favorites. The best favorites became - classics.
Morning Music of this era was big and spacial. It created a beautiful holding pattern filled with songs of love, gossip, soul searching and interpersonal ultimatums -cleverly underscored with an easygoing beat. Heard towards the end of a night out, the metaphor of a "new day" wasn't lost on the writers and creators of Morning Music, helping it sustain a devoted following always prepared for the la-la-land it evolked.
CANDYSTORECORDS is an independent, NYC born and bred record label. It was founded in April of 2000 as the vehicle to deliver classic dance music. Now you may think "My God, Disco/Classic Dance has been done to death already". Well yes... but NOT from the experience and point of view as expressed in MightyREAL.
One of CANDYSTORECORDS' founders, David Kane, was and is a voracious record collector. His young adulthood was spent working in the Manhattan nightclub world. He started in 1980 as a doorman at New York-New York, on East 52nd Street. As the owners of this premier nightspot, (which by the way took all of Studio 54's customers after it was padlocked by the IRS), acquired more properties, David was shuttled around between New York-New York, Bonds International Casino, and the Palace on 14th Street - some nights as doorman, some as bartender.
David was immersed in the Disco business five nights a week. Guess what he did on his nights off? He went to all the other happening clubs: Xenon, The River Club, Palladium, The Limelight, Area, The Saint, Tracks, The Red Parrot, The Underground, and then the after hours joints. To say he was familiar with dance music and the scene in general, is an understatement.
Becoming weary of "the life," he landed a job at ABC-Television as the Supervisor of the Network Music Library. Here, he drew from an incredible collection of records, basically every Lp ever released since 1947 - to help score 23, ABC-TV shows. With a strong fondness, no, LOVE for dance music still in his bones, David purchased a pair of turntables and tried his hand at mixing. From 1985 until 2000, he was regularly employed as a Special Events DJ; founding and sustaining a number of well attended events.
At some point in the early 1990s, Disco compilation CDs started flooding the marketplace. Great, BUT they pretty much drew from the same well of 20 to 25 songs. Most of this repertoire was "radio songs", not the REAL club hits heard in the BIG ROOM nightclubs of America. When was someone going to put THEM on CD? Who out there had sufficient overview and knew the music? Hey wait a minute...
Well, someone became us: James Latz + David Kane = CANDYSTORECORDS... and we couldn't stop ourselves.
Almost immediately we had compiled 15 CD volumes worth of music. Realizing we had something very special drove us along during three intense years of researching, licensing and remastering. This is a legal product folks, a lot of older dance music seems to escape this pesky little step. Because of our diligence, CANDYSTORECORDS now has the cooperation of SONY BMG, Universal, Warner, EMI, and a handful of surviving independent dance labels in the creation of this music series.
The remastering of each and every track was undertaken by Rick Rowe, a multi gold record award recipient for his excellence in engineering. Having a soft spot for our compilation's time frame - Rick himself having done the original engineering on many classic dance tracks - he was inspired. The resulting sound quality in MightyREAL is quite wonderful.
MightyREAL's point of view is this: these are the hits as played by the top DJs of this era - the original 12-inch single versions. Please keep in mind, when dancing in the 1980s, not every DJ selection was brand new or of the moment. The flow, the experience, the journey also included notable older numbers. This is true with MightyREAL as well.
Each CD volume is grouped by theme or mood. For example, a future volume will be called "Instrumentals." Each track selected stands alone in its entirety, that is, they are NOT all mixed together. Three CD volumes of MightyREAL are available from CD Baby: "morning music", 'SHOWSTOPPERS", and "The Queens' Music I".
Purchase a few MightyREAL CDs, pop them into a player, hit shuffle, and viola! NEVER the same old mix.
In the words of Michael Paoletta at Billboard magazine, "...each volume is an essential (and memorable) step back in time ... it is here that timeless tracks...shine on."
So come on and give us a whirl!
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