1) Dance-Music.org -> Newsletter Issue 01 August 27th 2008
Firstly let us welcome you to the first ever Dance-Music.org newsletter!
We are delighted by the number of you who have subscribed to our newsletter, showing just how much you all want to be kept up to date with what's going on at Dance-Music.org.
We hope you enjoy your subscription and as a thank you, we are giving away some exclusive tracks to all our readers at the bottom of this email.
If any of you are having trouble viewing the content of this newsletter please let us know and we will endeavour to create a text only version next time.
So on with the news...
2) “Breaking The Rules” -> Album Update
As you all know DJ - C.D.C. has been working on his 7th album called “Breaking The Rules”, well he tells us he's been making steady progress and many of the half started tracks are now more finished than started.
There is still a long way to go before the album will be ready for release, but the tune writing is well underway and the tracks are mounting up, which means there is also some good news regarding the album track listing.
DJ - C.D.C. is now looking to have up to 14 tracks on the album as opposed to the originally anticipated 10 tracks.
Not all the tracks will be 'new', as he will be including a few break beat tunes he had written over the years but had never made it to an album.
He's also considering adding a couple of bonus tracks, not strictly in keeping with the main album speed of 132bpm, though this usually happens with his albums, C.D.C. is trying very hard to resist the temptation to mix the genres or speeds up to much.
So like usual he's debating over whether a couple of tracks should be considered 'Breaky' enough to be included.
He feels they have sufficient enough 'Break Beat' elements in them to warrant at least a chance, though they are 140bpm-142bpm and so has asked us if we would ask our newsletter readers to decide.
This is where we would like your help.........
Below are some samples of the tracks which are being considered for inclusion on the album along with track titles and notes.
All we need you to do is, have a listen and feed back to us your thoughts on which tracks should stay on the album and which should go.
Dance-Music.org is proud to offer this exclusive opportunity, allowing you the fans to decide what tracks should be on the album.
At the end of the day we want everyone to enjoy the album and welcome all feedback you may have, be it good, bad or indifferent.
Your valued input will then help DJ - C.D.C. ensure the album will be totally enjoyed by his fans once it is finally released.
| “Breaking The Rules” -> Track Selection Dilemma | |
| Pigeon Holed - 140bpm -> Click to Listen
This track was written a while back when DJ - C.D.C. got fed up with record labels being 'genre retentive', and finding there were so many genres and sub genres it was getting ridiculous. C.D.C's one belief with music is simple, you either like it or you don't. The only way you will know if you like it, is if you've had a listen to the track. Dismissing a track just because it isn't a certain genre or in some cases putting tunes in bizarre genres to be 'cool' or 'happening', when the genre is actually irrelevant and there was probably already a perfectly acceptable and well established genre to put it in already. Stop trying to “pigeon hole” the music and just enjoy it! This triggered C.D.C. to try and deliberately write a track that was “un-pigeon hole-able”, and ended up with this mash up genre track. There's unmistakable house in there, but then it turns into a cool 'acid break beat', with a 'fat B-Line' and 'warped TB 303 stabs'. He messes about with a few other genres Techno, Hardcore, Trance etc... but also unexpectedly slams in some 'Indie Grunge' vocals. Once finished he sent it off to the record company and said “Pigeon Hole That!” which of course they couldn't, but the A & R guy had a great sense of humour and was rather impressed with his efforts, even if it still wasn't the 'genre' they were looking for! DJ - C.D.C. feels this tune although not strictly 'Break Beat', nicely sums up the pun being played with the album name “Breaking The Rules”, because when it comes to C.D.C.'s music, he usually does! So is it 'Breaky' enough to stay? , or can you think of a better pigeon hole to put it in? |
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| House Music - 142bpm -> Click to Listen
This track is unusual straight off the bat as it is written at 142bmp and is the only track DJ - C.D.C's written at this tempo! Although, yes it smacks of house (well the name kind of gives it away), it most definitely has a 'Hard Dance' feel to it, 'with trance stabs and synths' and that warped bass', which has been used again and again in classic break tracks! Ok it probably would find itself at home on a harder dance album such as C.D.C.'s other albums “Four” or “Harder & Faster”, but he still thinks it has a place on this album! Do you? |
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| Techme - 140bpm -> Click to Listen
This track was started a few years back when he was up late one night and had a 'Mello Techno' moment. He got the first minute or so of the opening riff written and the initial piano break, but lost the 'love' and shelved it for a few years. He came across it again while looking for candidates to go on the new album and as he was hunting around the “Need To Work On At Some Point” folder, which he use as a new tune 'junkyard'. He loaded it up into his sequencer and felt it had potential so started to work on it again, although it is basically 'Mello Techno', it can certainly also be classed as 'Breaks' and so continued to incorporate a 'break beat' feel while keeping the 'techno' essence. It's not finished, but he's certainly brought it a long way from the original 60 second concept which had been lying around for a few years and hopefully you will agree it makes a fine addition to the album, even if it's going to be one of the faster tunes on the album at 140bpm. Remember the album is mainly 132bpm, but there is nothing wrong with a breaks track being 140bpm, it's only 8bpm difference, hardly a major deviation from the album's base BMP. At the end of the day, the choice is your! |
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DJ - C.D.C. would appreciate as much feedback as possible, along with your reasons for keeping or ditching any of the tracks.
3) Downloading -> Our Albums Just Got Easier To Find
To make it easier for you to find the style of music you enjoy, we have added a search facility and genre selector tool.
Simply use the genre selector tool to list albums which fall under the style of music you desire, or alternatively use the text search facility to find a specific track or album.
Remember to remove the genre selection when searching, unless you want to specifically search within genres. The genre selector tool is used in conjunction with the text search facility to act as an additional filter.
You will notice there is also an artist selector tool, which perhaps you were wondering why it only has DJ - C.D.C. available for selection.
Well contrary to popular belief, we are not going mad, but are actually considering expanding our download section to incorporate other independent artists.
This would be a major step for Dance-Music.org, as it would be once again opening its doors to the wider public, which DJ - C.D.C. had not envisaged when re-releasing Dance-Music.org and why he didn't re-open Step & Stomp Productions Limited's website, nor intends to.
However if we find there is a demand from artists who wish to be a part of our “Dance Music Organisation” and wish to give their albums away for free, then we may expand our site to incorporate a DMO-Artist's extranet to allow members to manage their own albums and profile.
At least with the latest page changes, the behind the scenes code updates and the incorporation of a new SQL database backend, which holds all the album data and powers the search facility, if we wish to add new artists and albums to the system at a later date, it will be easy as the infrastructure and required system architecture is already in place.
So what do you think?
Should we expand our offering and develop a DMO-Artist's extranet?
4) “A World Organisation In Dance” -> Dance Music Portal
If you've read our About Dance-Music.org page you'll know that we originally launched Dance-Music.org as a “Dance Music Portal” under the banner of “A World Organisation In Dance”, way back in 2002.
It was used as an advertising channel for Step & Stomp Productions Limited when DJ - C.D.C. released his first album “Dark & Rhythmic”.
The portal enabled other music sites to upload their banners to the portal and have our visitors vote for their favourite music sites...
...well we are thinking of bringing it back as an extra feature to the current site.
Rather than us just create a links page for those all important link exchanges, especially as we only want to place our own personal links on the 'About Us' page.
We thought why not bring back the old portal as our links page, this way we can offer you, our readers more music sites via a visitor vote controlled “league table”, where the visitors and voters decide which sites are good and which are not, we've even been toying with the idea that this time not only would we have the usual “Winners Hall of Fame”, spotlighting the most voted for site every 6 months, but also introduce a performance based penalty alongside the reward scheme, where the site that comes last in the league at the end of any given 6 month period is removed from the links portal altogether.
The site's banner listing will only be added back into the system after another 6 months period has elapsed, in effect banning them from having a listing in portal for 6 months.
This gives you the visitor control over who should be in the portal and who should not.
This we feel would give the portal real “value”, as any site that comes bottom of the league would be automatically removed, therefore giving kudos to those sites still in the portal as they would have genuinely earned their right to be there!
As with all our ideas and development plans, your feedback is very much welcomed and appreciated.
5) Last But Not Least -> Free MP3 Music Downloads For Every Newsletter Reader
Right that just about wraps thinks up for our first newsletter, so as promised, here are a few, “never released before”, MP3 downloads, which are exclusively for Dance-Music.org newsletter subscriptions only!
We hope you have enjoyed our newsletter and look forward to hearing your feedback and suggestions.
So until next time... “Peace, Unity, Love & Having Fun!”
Dance-Music.org, the home of free dance music.
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