Japanese release date: June 25th 1988
Buy Super Mix Club here (Discogs)
Read my Debbie Gibson album anniversary posts here
Let us never forget that Debbie Gibson started in the clubs. People sometimes think that a magical unicorn comes down from the pop heavens to bestow a rainbow of stardom upon musical legends (and wouldn't that be lovely, like some sort of amazing care bear stare); the reality is a lot of hard work and slog goes into the alleged overnight success that breakout singles garner. Whilst I was gazing dreamily at posters of Jeff Carrington and Morton Harket, Debbie was serving Only In My Dreams realness in clubs and bars she wasn't even old enough to drink at. It was that tenacity and dedication which meant that her debut single hit the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart a whopping five months after it was initially released. Her loyalty to the genre that launched her never faded away - she has been blessed to work with some amazing remixers overs the years. That all started with the singles released from her debut album Out Of The Blue. When these were collected on a Japanese only mini-album, delightfully titled Super Mix Club, 14 year old me could not have been more thrilled. As my wise mum once said "a good song should never be just contained to a 7", 3 minute mix. Dance, my son, dance"!
Record collecting was a real art in the 80s and Super Mix Club was the album which introduced me to the Japanese Import. Being an electric youth, my record expenditure budget was limited but I worked multiple jobs, did excess chores and squirrelled away every penny so I could feed my rather expensive habit. When I saw this album listed on the EIL mail out (a UK company - still going - which specialised in promo copies and imports) I knew I had to hand over a large portion of my weekly wages to have it. Collections of club mixes were all the rage - Janet Jackson and Madonna had hit the UK charts with collections of their dance mixes with a format the Pet Shop Boys had pioneered in 1986 with the compilation Disco. It didn't matter that I owned all the mixes already - the appeal of another Debbie CD to add to my collection was too strong. It let me re-live songs in a different way, appreciating the extended instrumental passages; loving the way vocal sections could be copied, repeated, chopped up, transposed up and down in pitch and give them more echo, reverberation, treble or bass.
Due to the summer 1988 release date, Super Mix Club didn't contain Staying Together - but it did bring together the club mixes of her three big pop-dance chart hits, Only In My Dreams, Shake Your Love and Out Of The Blue. Now-legendary remix kings worked wonders on these songs. Little Louie Vega took the percolating percussion of breakout smash Only In My Dreams and made it a swirling, pulsing pop fantasy to dance along to (infusing it with vocal loops of dreams during an intoxicating bridge to build anticipation for the irrepressible chorus). Oh, and that italo-house piano addition is heaven. Scott Blackwell took on Shake Your Love by adding some sweet synth chimes and a frenetic vocal loop to amp up the already-inherent energy of the song. Louie returned for Out Of The Blue (with some help from The Latin Rascals), perhaps the most faithful of the remixes. It certainly kept the joyous textured instrumental and euphoric chorus but took some exhilarating liberties with the intro to the second verse as well as the middle 8. It was heaven.
Super Mix Club wasn't perfect (as much as I love the extended Foolish Beat it felt a little out of place amidst the dance grooves), but it was a super fun collection. And the other art of record collecting in the 80s/90s was the joy of making your own mix tape. I later made my own volumes of Debbie's club hits from albums by taping the remixes from 12" and CD singles onto cassette, making my own track listings and cover art (usually from photos out of Smash Hits magazine). A look back through my (mortifying) teen diaries reveals that I did three volumes, starting with my own take on the original which included that phenomenal Phil Castellano remix of Staying Together (as well as adding the blistering club mix of Deb penned Speed of Light by Reimy). Mercifully, many of these remixes were bought together in one collection for fans as part of the career spanning We Could Be Together boxset. Play the remixes CD and give yourself a true Girls Night Out...
Myfizzypop Super Mix Club Vol.1 ~ Only In My Dreams (Extended Club Mix) / Shake Your Love (Club Mix) / Out Of The Blue (Club Mix) / Staying Together (Phil Castellano Remix) / Speed of Light (by Reimy - Medley (Debbie Gibson Mega Mix)
Myfizzypop Super Mix Club Vol.2 ~ Only In My Dreams (Dream House Mix) / Shake Your Love (Shake The House Version) / Electric Youth (Deep House Mix) / We Could Be Together (House Mix) / Electric Youth (The Electro Mix) / We Could Be Together (House of Trix)
Myfizzypop Super Mix Club Vol.3 ~ Anything Is Possible (PWL Extended Mix) / One Step Ahead (Club Mix) / Hip Hop (by Chris Cuevas - 12" House Club Mix) / Losin' Myself (12" Masters At Work Mix) / Free Me (Smoove Free Club Mix) / Shock Your Mama (London Apprentice Edit)
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