Haircut house - S/D

Destroy: the continued popularity of shit hed kandi compilations, which are surely still a big part of haircut house

It has soundtracked many occasions of me trying not perve on guys I mildly dislike.

i really am struggling to draw lines between 'four to the floor', 'drop the pressure' and 'du what you du', it would never have occurred to me to triangulate these and make a genre out of them.

erm 'candy girl' like you said on the other thread?

lindstrom rmx of 'tribulations'?

"zdarlight" tho for sure.

it's going to make me sad when I end up having played every record on this thread at some point.

"You Gonna Want Me" definitely though!

ha ha x-post!!!

Simian Mobile Disco and Digitalism are haircut house. Trentemoller and Gabriel Ananda, even at their most rocky and boshing, are not.

Tiga is to haircut house as John The Baptist was to Jesus.

well jocks doesn't really make sense in a british context but i know what tim means and they really really do listen to this stuff, you know - that hed kandi type stuff is everywhere.

what age are you, lex?

the Braxe mix of Test Icicles (moshtastic)

xpost to me

Other suggestions:
Justice Vs Simian-Never Be Alone
Anything by Rex the Dog

Controversial choice:
Switch-This Is Sick

Surely it's only a matter of time until someone posts here going "B-b-b-ut all this stuff is great!!!!"

x-post jed otm, jocks DO listen to house music.

captain comatose i guess!

Tiga - Move My Body (Boys Noize Remix)

Inaya Day - The Glamorest Life
Inaya Day - Nasty Girl
Mind Electric - Dirty Cash (Money Talks)
Bad Cabbage - You're Rude (Get Fucked)
Rogue Traders - Voodoo Child
Moguai - U Know Y
Tube & Berger - Gerideau

I love about half of this stuff and dislike the other half. It's absolutely massive in Australia.

Lex you're still getting it wrong actually - too stylish!

Or am i getting too crass now?

what age are you, lex?

23. all the jocks at my uni listened to razorlight and oasis.

Lex you're still getting it wrong actually - too stylish!

but i still do not see how 'my my my' and 'never be alone' and 'drop the pressure' are in the same genre! they are so different!

Ponihoax-Budapest??? No, jesus Lex, that's like suggesting Joanna Newsome in a "Death Metal POX" thread. Think of music for people who have that weird shaven head fucked up hairline and a sort of mullet placed on top of it.

I'm not sure about that Tiga/Boys Noize one, but I suppose Boys Noize merit a track on this thread, possibly, and that's the most apt one. It's not quite house enough tho in my opinion.

I actually think Claude Vonstroke "The Whistler" has a kind of hairdresser house feel to it, mostly cos it's like "FUNKY", tho it's not an outright HH tune.

x-post no not too crass these are PERFECT, hahaha

Never Be Alone and Drop The Pressure aren't that different. Haven't knowingly heard My My My.

Also Lex you have no idea how peoples taste works, imagine everybodys taste as a huge venn diagram, with "Drop The Pressure" being on the very outermost point, towards "electro", of these peoples tastes.

Oh jesus x-post I am about to own this thread, have any of you heard the following?

DAVID GUETTA VS THE EGG TOCADISCO MIX-LOVE DON'T WALK AWAY (or something)

my harem listen to minimal and indie-dance! i know what indie-dance is.

me: weetabix/minimal house

This is because you cannot grow hair like Russell Brand.

Search: Astudio ft. Polina - S.O.S. (original and remixes)
Gaelle - Give It Back (Putsch 79 'Lektro Remix)

Destroy: Rogue Traders. On sight.

Laugh at: Misch Masch ft. Lois - Speechless (the 'woohs' in the introduction never fail to amuse me).

you might as well say "it's a spectrum running from black dice to sandi thom" such is the extent of that spectrum and the total disparity of the stuff at one end of it from the other

Mish Mash-Speechless, DING DING. I fucking hate that tune, for shame Crosstown Rebels.

that would have made sense but i suspect that everyone has interpreted it in a completely different way. also it has nothing to do with rex the dog surely, or mylo.

The Klaxons - Gravitys Rainbow (Van She Remix)
Daft Punk - Every mix of Technologic ever except the Basement Jaxx one

The Rex The Dog Mix of Drop The Pressure = total haircut house.

which is entirely NOT what my harem listens to! you keep shifting the goalposts!

hey it wouldn't have 'haircut' in the title otherwise!

none of the DFA mixes from the last year seem to fit with HH, curiously, given the hipstery precedent.

In any case there's a big gulf stylistically between the Kaiser Chiefs and the White Stripes but they fit quite snugly under the haircut indie banner.

But what's this, a figure in the distance? I can't see, the light burns my eyes, it almost looks like........it can't be.....Vahid? A furious Vahid here to smite this thread down??? NOOOOO

the Quayside, Newcastle?

you know, kieron and the boys

Vahid was right! It is Big Beat 2.0.

the Quayside, Newcastle?

Thank fuck, I'm not there anymore.

No you can't! It's so obvious I just don't know how to explain it, people who like house music can like stuff like Trentemoller, and also stuff like "Flashdance". They are not like, poles apart, you'd think we were saying people who have just been skinned enjoy rolling in salt the way people are reacting here.

More to the point I am in disbelief that we are sitting here arguing about was does and doesn't fit into an imaginary genre made up two hours ago.

This is the wrongest thing you've ever said in ILX history. All fucking rugby boys have four or five Hed Kandi compilations nowadays.

otherwise ronan otm.

b-b-b-but matt made up the genre! i think i know what you mean too but it needs another name, if we're going to call simian/justice bobbins 'haircut house'.

please explain a) what this means b) whether it is a good thing?

simian justice is not HAIRCUT house. remove the haircut from that sentence to reveal another important truth.

http://us.inmagine.com/168nwm/digitalvision/dv297/dv297002.jpg

i believe we'd refer to this stuff as either MOOK HOUSE or BRIDGE AND TUNNEL

This is the crowd I think of, and the answer to "what is haircut house" is for me "whatever plays at those bbqs". It's a continuum, not a strict sonic definition.

What happened then? Basically that crowd who were totally into post-French House "phased disco" - which then became just "funky house", started looking outside its initial borders for stuff which had a similar poppy "big with the girls" feel but dabbled in different styles. A big stepping stone was the more populist Subliminal-ish stuff - "Shiny Disco Balls", or Junior Jack's "Thrill Me" (esp. the awful vocal version) - a lot harder than the previous soundtrack music, but still with a similar vibe. Simultaneously, they were starting to get into more and more garish plasticky eighties sounds - the vocal version of "The Terrace"/"Stand Back" was pretty big for this scene, and I think that this shows the influence of electroclash as a motor for 80s revivalism is overrated - the kidz were reviving the 80s anyway, and if anything electroclash is curiously excluded from this scene, it's just not funky enough (typically clubs at this time would only play electroclash if they had some sort of indie quotient to their identity).

But alongside this the haircut house crowd still loved the light-hearted summery stuff like Tim Deluxe's "It Just Won't Do" or "Another Point Of View". And while their music of choice was getting more 80s and a little bit harder, it remained almost defiantly at the garish end of the spectrum - Boogie Pimps' "Somebody To Love" even, and obviously "Call On Me".

Flash forward to Feb 2005 and I remember a lightbulb going off above my head when one of the DJs played the Tiefschwarz mix of "Kinda New" - the territory we can call "Haircut House" had gradually crept outwards until it ran all the way from Joey Negro to archetypal electro-house. But this is about as straight tuff electro-house as they get - you wouldn't hear "The Abwehr Disco", though one or two DJs might try to get away with "Rocker". But it's not strange at all to hear "My My My", "Drop The Pressure", "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" and "Kinda New" all in a row.

Except that now in Australia there's an entire local cottage industry catering to this audience, and almost all of those producers (Dirty South, TV Rock, Rogue Traders, Vandalism, T-Funk) have a sound that is more obviously "bullseye" haircut house. It actually sounds a lot like Justice, except it always has prominent vocals: either guys doing some sort of Euro MCing update (think The Real McCoy) or "sassy" post-"Shiny Disco Balls" cynical sounding femmes, or "proper" house divas, or bootlegged whiny rock vocals.

you are The Lex of dancerock music

I know! I'm not saying I approved of this, let alone participated in it!

Yes Steve the remixes of "What Else Is There" and especially "Do What You Do" count, but nothing else at all.

I think I may have heard "Geht Nocht" at one of these bbqs but I may be manufacturing that memory.

HI DERE!!

None of it is good really. I'm coming round to the notion (propogated by catherine ryan) that TV Rock's "Flaunt It" is the best of a bad bunch. As I've said elsewhere some of it is interesting in that it has a certain OTT extremeness people tend to associate with Justice/Digitalism - lots of ridiculous syncopated arpeggios reminiscent of Black Strobe's "Fitting Together", only in these big camp poppy house songs.

actually we shouldn't underestimate the influence of homo house on haircut house: a lot of this stuff isn't that far removed from big homo hits like the house remix of Faith Evans' "Mesmerised", or Kristine W's "Some Lovin' (Peter Rauhoefer Mix)".

OH! I just remember an absolute classic! Martin Solveig - Rocking Music!!!

I like Tim's definition, I'm willing to give the term to him.

x-post Matt you have to search it, it's one of the best tracks ever! It's like the haircut house version of Shapeshifters' "Lola's Theme" in terms of sheer room-filling largesse.

The thing about this thread is there is a definite sound to this stuff, I just don't know how people can't grasp that that Yoshimoto Trentemoller, for example, really has this sound, I don't know why, it's probably the sort of emptiness of the vocal and the kind of phased guitar noises. I actually really rate the tune for managing to be such an absolute smash in HH style but also just credible enough to play to people who would dismiss HH.

Also I'm sure this isn't just an Australian thing, do these guys wear stripey polo shirts Tim?

Also can someone post a pic of the non trendy nu mullet, I mean the one, it's not even really a mullet, where the hairline is kind of shaved short in a weird line, not along the usual back of the head route, kind of lower than normal above the ear and then way lower than normal on the back of the head, so you get this weird sort of long unshaven hair growing a tiny bit over shaven.

Does anyone know what I mean?

x-post not quite wetherspoons I wouldn't say, these people have some pretensions to being trendy, I think.

what about Planet Funk 'The Switch' ('Chase The Sun' also perhaps)?

"I Like The Way You Move" is still the ultimate, it's like, doubles as music for a public park cleaning day refreshments party.

Dance music for parents to dance with toddlers to at large public parties S/D.

L'More - Taking Hold (quite good)
Disco Montego - U Talkin' To Me (quite good)
Rogue Traders vs INXS - One Of My Kind (crap)
Mr. Timothy - I Am Tha 1 (quite good)
BodyRockers - I Like The Way You Move (it cares not what I think of it)
Inaya Day - Nasty Girl (great!)
T-Funk - The Glamorous Life (hard to dislike)
TV Rock - Never Say Never (like/hate)
Vandalism - Never Say Never (meh)
Dirty South vs Evermore - It's Too Late (make it stop! my poor ears!)
Mind Electric - Dirty Cash (Money Talk) (kinda compelling, but not good exactly)
T-Funk - Be Together (another meh)

There's a really obvious one whose details I can't remember - catherine knows what it is. It's the one with the weird repetitive one note high-pitched diva vocals and then the big chorus that's something like "Baby I FEEL like I'M FALLING in LOVE!"

Re the Wetherspoons. I was trying to think "what stuff is just too crass for this crowd". I think it's stuff like Hi-Tack, Royal Gigolos etc - stuff which sounds like it doesn't even take itself seriously (when haircut house is tongue in cheek it's about some third thing - so "Owner Of a Lonely Heart" is laughing a bit at early 80s Yes, but not itself per se). Of course Hi-Tack's "Say Say Say" is better than most haircut house records!

Also let it be known that the success of "Body Language" is basically down to the fact that this crowd quite like it.

Also TBH I don't like all of this stuff but I know what it is and I enjoy a lot of it, basically "dance music daytime Radio 1 still plays" would sum it up for me.

xpost Actually if the Hi-Tack end of things is taken out of the equation I don't like HH after all :(

Really not good but there ARE records like it that I DO like - even with something like this you can of course discern!

Mind you there are worse pictures on that site.

Galleon's 'So I Begin' is too good to mention here!

http://onelove.com.au/pics2006/onelove_pix_060722/source/image/imgp4194.jpg

http://onelove.com.au/pics2006/onelove_pix_060722/source/imgp4279.htm

http://onelove.com.au/pics2006/onelove_pix_060722/source/image/imgp4279.jpg

Because I may have spent all day in my pyjamas, but at least I don't look like this:

http://onelove.com.au/pics2006/onelove_pix_060722/source/image/imgp4303.jpg

A list
Basement Jaxx- Hush Boy
David Guetta vs The Egg- Love Don't Let Me Go (Walking Away)
Supermode- Tell Me Why

B list
Chocolate Puma- Always and Forever
Michael Gray featuring Shelly Poole- Borderline
Mousse T vs The Dandy Warhols- Horny As A Dandy

C list
Route 33 featuring Alex James- Looking Back
Supafly Inc.- Moving Too Fast

ie i know lots of these tracks -- not something i experience on the electro/minimal threads.

finney's autobiographical post was especially great.

http://onelove.com.au/pics2006/onelove_pix_060722/source/image/r0010995.jpg

Metrosexual != Homosexual

I recognise maybe four of the (non-dnb) names on there - it just doesn't chime with any of my recent experience of dance music.

Some of those pics, not the awful first few, but maybe the last one, look like (some) people that go to our night, so there is a considerable crossover.

polo shirts with track shoes and expensive thongs

(Carry on. Sorry.)

-- The Lex

Y'know if you're outside London this stuff pretty much IS electro-house!

(Carry on. Sorry.)

Lloyd's #1 actually, which is owned and maintained by the JD Wetherspoon corporation. "Lloyds House" just sounds wrong though, hence "Wetherspoons House" or whatever.

I think the problem some people have with the "Du what you du" Trentemoller remix - is that this is something you could quite easily here at a club playing haircut house, but not a hotel/pub/sports bar/radio (although I could imagine them playing the Trentemoller's Royksopp remix).

Things to add:

Moonbootica
Cosmo Vitelli's cover of "I Like To Move It"
Paul Mac - check out his profile/photos at http://www.paulmac.com.au/
lots of generic mashups

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qua2VToGFk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qua2VToGFk

So would MSTRKRFT fit here?

Can you imagine how angry/annoyed some people must be about this thread? Just imagine the annoyance!

why are you people always trying to make me hate the music i love by stacking it in piles it clearly does not belong?

having been listening to it at work the last few days the answer is;
pop-dance covers of 'white rabbit','smalltown boy' and others, The new madonna single, and one with whistling in it which is a bit reminiscent of that one '...featuring Oliver Cheatam' of a few years back. They rarely tell you who the dance songs are by so I can't be more specific. Not heard Mylo or Justice vs Simian played at all.

Arctic Monkeys Leave Before The Lights Come On (14/08)
David Guetta vs The Egg Love Don't Let Me Go (Walking Away) (14/08)
Scissor Sisters I Don't Feel Like Dancin' (04/09)
Supermode Tell Me Why (24/07) (the Bronski Beat one)
Chocolate Puma Always and Forever (14/08)
Mousse T vs The Dandy Warhols Horny As A Dandy (07/08)

Yes, entirely. Wait to you hear the subsequent single "I See You Watching Me Watching You", which is based around the rock riff from "My Sharona" and is basically a sequel to "I Like The Way You Move" (including the feeling that both convey of having always existed) - in fact the most successful pop radio station here changed their TV advert backing music from the former to the latter, it was like a change of the guard or passing of the baton.

Presets/Cut Copy/Riot In Belgium - sorta. That stuff is connected to Bang Gang but not so much to Haircut House per se - too indie, too much of a rock audience.

(ps comeon can someonene id the video I described earlier plzzzzz!)

(I'm going to see Linus Loves tonight . . . will report back on haircuts!)

You cant win

LOCK THREAD anytime this song comes up

you sound like an idm snob dismissing early basic channel!

=(

i guess i am just shocked by the normative attitude so many people are taking towards haircut house. it's the equivalent of when people say "god i HATE reggaeton, every song has the SAME stupid beat", without even evaluating the strengths that the reggaeton producer is trying to play up and the priorities of the reggaeton fans.

i posted audio links to like a dozen haircut house tracks that i thought were GREAT examples of post-braxe/falke commercial house and people completely ignored it ...

anyway, what's the point of actually talking about songs when we could be going on like true idiots about "the triumph of style over substance" and "the masses"?

Like straightforward techstep tracks made using live sounding drum samples or (worse) live drummers - it would be better to just give in and use "To Shape The Future" sound mechanical noises!

but when you say "sampled guitars" / "snotty vocals" ... this sounds more like sander kleinberg or freeform five?

Most of the stuff you're talking about sounds much more obviously house-proper, albeit with electro components, a la the first half of the Mei Lwun mix. Haircut House is more like the last few tracks on the Mei Lwun mix.

I can't believe no-one said "omg registered ratty to thread" already

To take this further, I think it's at least partly about dance producers attempting to establish some distance between themselves and (what they conceive as being) conventional dance music. Rogue Traders called their new album Here Come The Drums (after the line in "Voodoo Child") and there's a sense in which "drums" here is important, this notion of drums vs beats.

Actually one of the more extreme examples of this I can think of is Basement Jaxx's "Plug It In", which hardly sounds like house anymore. Compare and contrast with "Get Me Off" and (most of) "Where's Your Head At", both of which derive a lot of their force from heavy(handed) use of house percussion.

It just occurred to me that Jess's surprise re my description of the haircut house-listening law student's attire must stem from him thinking I meant "thong" as in Sisqo rather than "thong" as in John Kerry.

Plug in for a charge of Electro therapy

The rumours were false: clubland is not dead. It was just resting. To be fair, the sort of bacchanalian nightclub that would probably see P.Diddy pronounce it "a bit much" did dwindle, replaced by identikit dancetarias playing pop trance and filled with hard-faced blokes and women who looked like they had put on blusher with the vigour of someone brushing a horse.

Elsewhere, it was all "The Strokes this" and "NME that" and "oh, you still listen to dance music do you?" Guitar based rock was the hot ticket and gig-going became the new clubbing.

Now, I LIKE incredibly loud, raucous sounds. Don't get me wrong. I watched Big Brother and I once dated a woman with two children. But this was a sad time as dance music, the most vibrant youth culture since punk (and which lasted 10 times as long) appeared to be withering on the vine.

Or was it? Slowly, from about March this year, coming out of the annual dance industry jamboree that is the Miami Winter Music Conference, a sound emerged that caught the ear of tastemaker DJs, producers and, crucially, punters. It had funk, it had bass and it had immediate appeal across different dance music tribes. It's called electro and it's the sound of summer.

The appeal of this dirty, bassy sound ranges from cool London pirate stations such as Passion FM through to the Hed Kandi-style funky house disco-pubs where tanned young chaps and girls in short skirts slug Bacardi Breezers by the bucketful. Not since rave has a sound been so universally popular, with traditional House DJs such as Eric Morillo playing the same records as the darkest "grime" DJs. Listen to the Tocadisco mix of The Egg's Walking Away or Mandy's Body language or anything on the German Kompakt label and you will see why dance music has pulled itself out of the doldrums. Electro is the sound of now and it's brilliant.

[Stuff about where to hear this exciting new sound omitted]

The dance floor has been invigorated. Go seek out some electro-shock therapy.

COMEDY.

REVIVE!

How do people think Haircut House, the scene, has changed in the last two and a bit years?

It strikes me that the distance I once perceived b/w "Haircut House" and "indieclash" has shrunk remarkably - I could totally imagine hearing "This Boy's In Love" and "Hearts On Fire" at those BBQs now. i really must stop and pay attention next time i'm at uni.

Whereas I don't think Rogue Traders would get a look in now (poss. exception of "What You're On", which is more like a "Chase The Sun" throwback anyway).

Dirty South and Vandalism really are the pits though, possibly the worst that music gets in 2008. I had to rewrite a review of a Vandalism single I did for the local street press cos my editor thought it came across like I had a personal (non-music) grudge.

But what I really came on here to say is: LADY GAGA. Uniting Haircut House and US Stargate R&B so I don't have to. Only I don't like her AT ALL. She is the ugly face of the 2008 4X4 & Autotune consensus. Catherine likes her though and I trust Catherine when it comes to sorting the Haircut wheat from the chaff (see upthread) so maybe this is just me?

What are the big Haircut House tunes of the last twelve months or so eh

that track sampling Boom Crash Opera's "The Best Thing" (strictly an Oz ting)
Vandalism "Smash Disco" - awful, a true nadir
The Potbelleez "Don't Hold Back" - a classic albeit overplayed
Fedde De Grand throughout 2007
Axwell "I Found U" wotta tune
that remix/mash-up of Robin S's "Show Me Love"

Haha I saw this band at a festival in Portugal and thought of this thread.

this is still the most baffling thread ever

yeah kings of leon kind of are haircut music aren't they? or the killers!

I actually think some of those JLC remixes of the Killers would fit well as haircut house, tho obv they aren't the exact gear grinding sound itself.

haircut house canon anyone?

eric prydz-call on me=god

fedde le grande-put your hands up for detroit=jesus

that remix of steve bug's remix of the freaks with the terrible vocal=the holy spirit

http://www.residentadvisor.net/images/reviews/2008/thecountandsinden-beeper.jpg

Elephant in room 2008.

i love 'beeper'!! but it has nothing to do with eg 'call on me'.

gigantic menacing elephant...devouring all other elephants in room.

and lex don't say this has nothing to do with "call on me"

if you squint a lot, yes, but then i presume everyone's eyes are totally screwed anyway from the contortions of trying to look at all the songs mentioned on this thread through the same prism

im way intrigued by this thread because it seems like the american fan base of 'haircut house' is v. different from what it seems to be in australia/the uk

I'm not sure what Ronan's giant menacing elephant is. Is it Utah Saints - Something Good 2008?

i presume it's 'wearing my rolex' though can i just take a moment to say how much i hate youtube embeds, they totally kill my computer

sorry lex. i'll buy you a beer.

it is indeed "wearing my rolex"

can we fit arto mwambe's new one on this thread? please germans everyone make this music and we can shout from the rooftops that a new cheesey shit trendy vacuous hype driven empty wonderful genre has been born and nobody is "getting their dues"

Thanks to this thread I now have Calvin Harris going "I get all the girls I get all the girls" over and over and over in my head.

is there any instrumental HH? the original 'Yeah Yeah' maybe (apart from the vocoder bit and the 'wooo!')

"It strikes me that the distance I once perceived b/w "Haircut House" and "indieclash" has shrunk remarkably"

this is just an australian thing, i'm guessing? i dunno, over here in Croatia haircut house usually gets played in mainstream clubs alongside more trad Freemasons-type house, while the indieclash crowd may dance to some fidget or blog house - but nothing much further on the house spectrum. as for the rest of the Europe/world, don't know really, but if i was to judge by various mp3 blogs i sometimes visit, i'd say that indieclashers don't have much interest in haircut house except a Laidback Luke remix here and there, wjile the mersh house dudes are more likely to dip into, say, Deadmau5 or Adam K & Soha-style trancey progressive than indieclash.

since i don't go much to mainstream clubs, i don't know what the big hits are over here (other than the obvious ones, "Let Me Think About It", "I Found U", etc), so i can only recommend some stuff i've enjoyed this year:

<a href=";>Klaas - The Way (At Night Mix)</a>
ok, this one might be too funky & liquid for this thread, as opposed to Klaas' usual big synths+big guitar breakdowns template which he's still flogging to death and which i'm increasingly annoyed by (though, to be fair, i like <a href=";>this one</a> alot), but it's great and deserves to be heard, so there you go!

<a href=";>Dave Spoon feat. Lisa Maffia - Bad Girl (At Night)</a>
can't deny it, i'm a sucker for build-ups with swelling buzzsaw riffs like this one. (also: <a href=";>Guetta & Garraud's Kylie rmx</a>

<a href=";>Michael Mind - Don't Walk Away</a>
bit of an acquired taste, this one: while the main bouncy synth/bass hook is immediately enjoyable, the rocky intermezzos sound like Michael Cretu (ie, the Enigma guy) doing Linkin Park! i, of course, have the stomach for it, but if you don't, the Sunloverz (ie, Michael Mind + some other guy) remix of Whigfield's "Think of You" does the same thing, minus the rocky bits.

<a href=";>Remi Nicole - Rock n Roll (Soul Seekerz Edit)</a>
as far as Bodyrox ripoffs go, this beats the hell out of all the crap that Wideboys have been churning out on an almost daily basis recently.

totally agree on Dirty South and Vandalism, though i'll admit to not minding Vandalism's "spank da nun" rmx of Happy Clappers' "I Believe". by-the-book banging electro house + by-the-book banging piano house + big drop feat. a SNARE ROLL = obvious but it works.

uh... sorry about that! i'll try once more, this time with the new formating in mind

Klaas - The Way (At Night Mix)
love this, although it admittedly might be too, hm... funky, swinging, liquid for this thread? as opposed to Klaas' usual big synths+big guitar breakdowns template, which he's still flogging to death and which i'm increasingly annoyed by... though, to be fair, i like this one too:

Dave Spoon feat. Lisa Maffia - Bad Girl (At Night)
can't deny it, i'm a sucker for build-ups with swelling buzzsaw riffs like this one. also, Guetta & Garraud's Kylie rmx on a similar tip:

Michael Mind - Don't Walk Away
bit of an acquired taste, this one: while the main bouncy synth/bass hook is immediately enjoyable, the rocky intermezzos sound like Michael Cretu (ie, the Enigma guy) doing Linkin Park! i, of course, have the stomach for it, but if you don't, the Sunloverz (ie, Michael Mind + some other guy) remix of Whigfield's "Think of You" does the same thing, minus the rocky bits.

Remi Nicole - Rock n Roll (Soul Seekerz Edit)
as far as Bodyrox ripoffs go, this beats the hell out of all the crap that Wideboys have been churning out on (almost literally!) daily basis recently.

totally agree on Dirty South and Vandalism, though i'll admit to not minding Vandalism's "spank da nun" rmx of Happy Clappers' "I Believe". by-the-book banging electro house + by-the-book banging piano house + big drop feat. a SNARE ROLL = obvious but it works.

kylie / guetta & garraud:

michael mind:

remi nicole / soul seekerz: