Song of the Day: Brassroots “Sweet Dreams”

A core tactic in crowd motivation is to recontextualize things that people know. That’s one of the reasons that DJs stash an arsenal of edits, remixes, and novel cover versions.

I first got hip to UK horn outfit Brassroots via their 2009 cover of Inner City’s “Good Life”. Many of us caned that jam repeatedly over the years, but I also deploy the Brassroots version of “Sweet Dreams” by Eurythmics.

There’s something about an iconic bass line transmogrified by the oomph of a tuba that turns heads and changes the energy of the dancefloor. It gets even better when Annie Lennox‘s vocal on the bridge is channeled by dual blaring trumpets. The result is a musical curveball that can make for some real fun when dropped into a DJ set.