An oldie but a goodie, “Dare” is a song of Damon Albarn’s acclaimed group, Gorillaz, from their 2005 album, Demon Days. It was the groups first song to hit #1 on the UK charts and features vocals from the lead singer of Happy Mondays, Shaun Ryder. The original title of the song was “It’s There” but Ryder’s thick Mancurian accent made it sound like “It’s Dare”, hence the name change. As much as I love this track, the remixes are far superior.
.Gorillaz – “Dare”
“Dare” is a sleek, mid tempo, disco affair. A compact song with funk filled beats, vibrating bass and touches of glam. Shaun Ryder’s strained and weary vocals provide a perfect contrast for a lazy diversity in the song’s style, particularly to Albarn’s far reaching falsetto and the song’s shoegazing synthesizers.
.DFA Remix
This remix is why I love the track. DFA so casually strips away this song but leaves more character in it than when found. Right off the bat we hear DFA’s magic. Introduced with Ryder’s thug-esque and bare vocals “It’s coming up, / it’s dare,” followed by light brushes on a snare and a vibrating fuzz of synthesizers before a bubbling, beautiful disco riff stylishly moves in to take center stage. This mix features so many cuts and breaks in the rhythm that jump back in and out, it’s a pleasure to listen to how it flows. The remainder of the vocals all remain stripped down and scratchy, bringing a lot of personality to the mix. Like plenty of DFA remixes the song trails into their own composition that has nothing to do with the original, except for maybe an underlying beat. Plenty is added into the tail of this one.
.Soulwax Remix
Soulwax does almost as an impressive remix as DFA. It starts of subtle as well, but splashes in with a much harder, rock driven drum machine and distorted electro-house inspired melodies. It’s a lot serious and less glam. The tight falsetto of Albarn is kept but the rawness of Ryder is filled with more passion and color. The mix drives forward very much this way, before further hits on keyboards and sequencers take the front row to speed the melody up.
.Dave Aude Remix
This is a hyper and faster mix that jumps into everything all at once. It’s very trance like in style, from the laser sounds to the chunky beats, to the super fast and mental pace. It’s significantly sped up when compared to the original or the other mixes. So much so that it feels a little rushed. Two minutes in it slows down for a brief moment, which is an interesting part of the song as it features a few new notes from various sequencers, it then speeds up again, but slows down again just for the voices, which this time overlaps both Albarn’s and Ryder’s, a nice mismatch.
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xxx