In The Mix: Shaking In The Boiler Room
The month of March has been packed with a number of new hits for music fans of all genres. As the summer quickly approaches, we take a look at some of the fresh new songs ready to fill our headphones. Also as college students across the country enjoy their breaks, we travel all the way to Australia to hear a DJ set perfect for every spring breakers trip.
Single of the Week: Over the past two years, Bruno Mars has emerged as one of the top pop and R&B performers in the music industry. After the release of his 2016 album 24K Magic, Bruno Mars popularity has skyrocketed. Two years later, Bruno Mars’s most recent album has earned him six Grammy awards and has made him one of the top artists of our generation.
Two years after the release of the album, Bruno Mars teamed up with trap queen Cardi B to create a remix of the song “Finesse”. The track combines the sounds of a modern R&B track with an 80s swing vibe. The funky song is based on a unique drum line in which Cardi offers an opening verse. The song’s remix was accompanied by a music video featuring the impressive dancing talent of Mars. The song is the perfect summer track to keep the listeners dancing two years after the track’s original release.
Music Videos of the Week
Lil Dicky ft. Chris Brown - “Freaky Friday”: Fans have been patiently waiting for three years for the next studio album of Philadelphia rapper Lil Dicky. This past week Dicky released another hysterical track, “Freaky Friday”, featuring the singing talents of Chris Brown. With the release of the song, Dicky dropped another one of his humorous music videos starring him and Brown. The song is all about Dicky and Chris Brown switching bodies for a day, similar to the plot of the movie Freaky Friday, enjoying the benefits of one another’s lives. The video follows the two around their days in their new bodies, Lil Dicky loving his new level of popularity and Brown enjoying a lack of paparazzi and judgment in his life. The track and video also feature Lil Dicky in the bodies of stars like Ed Sheeren, DJ Khalid, and Kendall Jenner. The track gives LD fans a glimpse of what is to come with his next album, likely to include an impressive list of features.
Chow Mane - “ABG (Asian Baby Girl)”: Rapper and UC Berkley graduate, Chow Mane has begun to get his name on the scene by releasing a series of singles. Last year, Chow Mane released the track “ABG” meaning “Asian Baby Girl”. The song is all about the Asian American rapper finding a beautiful Asian girl to make his own. The track’s video features the rapper trapping out an expensive mansion surrounded by these beautiful Asian women. Chow Mane spits slow verses over the laid-back beat, adding a signature hook of, “That’s my Asian baby girl, that’s my Asian baby girl/ That my lil’ ABG”.
Prince Royce – “El Clavo”: After teaming up with Bad Bunny and J Balvin on “Sensualidad”, Latin pop star Prince Royce has released another hit with “El Clavo”. The main theme of the track is about the artists comforting women either in or coming out of bad relationships. The pop artist sings, “If your boyfriend kicks you out tonight/Tell him that you’re not alone/That you’re with me”. The video for the track, sung entirely in Spanish, features Royce driving expensive sports cars surrounded by smoke and streaming red lights. Prince Royce continues to put his name on the map, releasing hit after hit to start the new year.
DJ Set
Over the past few years, London DJ Dan Shake has owned dance clubs across the globe providing listeners with his funky mixes created for the purpose of dancing. Creating and mixing most of his own tracks, Shake has captured the electronic music scene behind his signature catchphrase, “Shake it, don’t fake it”.
At the beginning of the month The Boiler Room, a popular site for DJ sets and mixes, brought a number of DJs to Melbourne, Australia for their fourth year of Sugar Mountain. Dan Shake, one of the six artists performing on the stage, offers up an hour-long dance set for a crowd of eager listeners.
Shake, surrounded by the dancers, opens his set with a groovy 70s sample laid over one of his basic high-hat drum lines. The entirety of the set is complemented by a series of horn instrumentals that adds to the dance vibe of his set. Shake’s use of samples is truly what makes this set shine, as they all add a groovy element to his electronic beats and synths. As the set progresses, Shake by no means loses the dancing crowd despite changing the overall feeling and vibe of his music.
Leaving behind the 70s samples, Shake steadily moves to a more traditional electronic sound maintaining a similar drum line throughout the set. Laying more bass-heavy synths over the high-hat line, Shake keeps the listeners moving with flowing transitions and face-melting drops. Entirely surrounded by listeners and the beautiful Australian sky, Dan Shake brings a new electronic mix to the Boiler Room.
Shake’s hour-long set not only keeps his listeners dancing, but also boosts his popularity within the underground electronic music scene. Shake is no stranger to the Boiler Room, as he performed a similar set in their London club just two years ago. His style of music was made for these types of underground music clubs. Not a second goes by throughout his sets where the crowd is not moving. As he continues to dominate the underground electronic game, Dan Shake’s presence in the EDM industry will continue to be felt.