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Great Wall
10/21/2003 5:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Ken Micallef
"He is the world's most influential DJ," proclaims this double CD's press materials, and then elaborates on Paul Oakenfold's accomplishments: First electronic artist in the Guinness Book Of Records; first DJ to play the Hollywood Bowl; hit remixes for Madonna and Justin Timberlake. What? Oakenfold hasn't performed to a thousand Russians dancing to his four-to-the-floor techno mind-meld?
With DJ compilations a dime a dozen it is easy to trash Oakenfold and his hedonistic pursuit of galactic DJ domination, but since no one has bothered to tell him that DJ comps are passé, he keeps it buzzing along like the Energizer bunny. What else would Oakenfold do, and where would he go? To that final frontier of commerce and capitalism, China, that's where. Oakenfold recorded Great Wall on China's Great Wall to a throng of madly dancing kids. But wait a disco nap minute, closer inspection reveals that he didn't record there at all; Great Wall was crafted in the spirit of that wondrous event. It's like a recreation of a cruise ship tour without the fattening food and shuffleboard tournaments. Whether these are the actual tracks Oakenfeld played on the Great Wall is also unclear, but the two-CD set includes remixes of Madonna's "American Life," Bjork's "Pagan Poetry," Layo & Bushwacka's "Deep South," and his own "Hypnotised." With the beat your only guide the tracks lose their original identity under a haze of whirring effects and gossamer production. How Oakenfold pulls it all off is another question, as none of these remixes are actually his either. It must be Oakenfold's status as the Don of all DJs that brings home the bacon to his fans, those sweaty teens looking for the next party, and the next DJ compilation.
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