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Paul Oakenfold
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Paul Oakenfold (born 30 August, 1963 in Greenhithe, Kent, UK) is a record producer and a popular trance DJ.
Oakenfold's career was set to be a chef, after having hopes of becoming part of a band, he describes his early life as a "bedroom deejay" on an interview in a podcast for Vancouver's 24 Hours stating he grew listening to The Beatles. Later 21-year-old Paul Oakenfold and Ian Paul grew in 254 West 54th Street, Studio 54's Steve Rubell ran the place and only allowed popular people inside, they used fake passes to sneak into places in New York where they met Maze, Bobby Womak and Bob Marley who they even interviewed as they said to be NME and Melody Maker journalists.
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Paul Oakenfold (born 30 August, 1963 in Greenhithe, Kent, UK) is a record producer and a popular trance DJ.
History
Early career (1979-1984)
Paul Oakenfold's career was set to be a chef, after having hopes of becoming part of a band, he describes his early life as a "bedroom deejay" on an interview in a podcast for Vancouver's 24 Hours stating he grew listening to The Beatles. Later 21-year-old Paul Oakenfold and Ian Paul grew in 254 West 54th Street, Studio 54's Steve Rubell ran the place and only allowed popular people inside, they used fake passes to sneak into places in New York where they met Maze, Bobby Womak and Bob Marley who they even interviewed as they said to be NME and Melody Maker journalists. Other people were Brooke Shields, Cher, Donald Trump and Bianca Jagger, Warhol, Dali and Yves Saint Laurent.
Paul Oakenfold’s musical career began in the late 70's, he started playing soul in a Covent Garden wine bar when he met Trevor Fung as well as Rumours in London where he played Earth, Wind and Fire and popular British bands. In 1984 he spent several months in New York City's West Harlem. During this time hip-hop was the most popular sound in the area (see 1984 in music). Larry Levan, one of the early deejays during this period performed at the Paradise Garage weekly with the hypnotic mixing style that would become the acid house that has evolved into and whose influence was absorbed by Paul. As he returned to his home country in the UK, Paul began utilizing the foreign sounds he once met and became one of the leading authorities of hip-hop in the United Kingdom. He began breaking into the mainstream as he was working as an A&R man for Champion Records, he signed at that time the unknown DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, as well as Salt-n-Pepa. He also appeared on the Blue Peter tv show from BBC programme for children with a breakdancing crew, he also became promoter and British agent for the Beastie Boys and Run-D.M.C.; Since then, he began his presentations at The Project in Streatham playing soul and jazz music.
Perfecto and fame (1985-1991)
A year later in 1985 Paul traveled to the island of Ibiza for a week to celebrate his birthday. Trevor Fung, Nicky Holloway, Ian Saint Paul, Danny Rampling and Johnny Walker accompanied him and it was during this time when playing at Amnesia that Paul demonstrated the balearic trance sound that he would later become known for. The event marked his career as a producer as he convinced his owner to display an "Ibiza Reunion" party after-hours, he had previously made an attempt but it failed as the crowd was not prepared for the acid house style until 1987 when the party was successful, since then the night grew as a classic and was one of the UK’s major acid house nights which became known as "Spectrum at Heaven in Charing Cross". Spectrum became popular in The Sanctuary as a bigger space was required, it became into the Heaven club which was ran by Paul and his friend Ian. The party was known for the "Theatre of Madness" as more than 1,500 people were present on Monday nights, until it went down; with the financial issues it changed its name to the "Land of Oz". Artists like Alex Paterson DJ'd in the VIP chillout area known as the "White Room", which gave Paul more free time, and then he began producing music under the alias "Electra" in 1988 with his friend Steve Osborne. In 1988 he decided to create a place where new artists could develop their careers, at that moment Perfecto Records was born.
In 1990, he worked with Terry Farley, Andrew Weatherall and Osborne on two remixes for The Happy Mondays, the remixes of "Rave On" and "Hallelujah" were released on the Madchester Rave On EP as well as "Step On" which is a covered version adapted from John Kongos' 1971 hit "He's Gonna Step On You", the song reached the Top 5 position in the UK. He was invited as a guest DJ to Spike Island, a gig from The Stone Roses and pleased with the last single, the Happy Monday's later gave Paul and Osborne the opportunity to produce their third studio album, Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches. The album entered the UK charts at #1 with pre-sales of 150,000, the album became NME's "1990 Album of The Year" and both Paul and Osborne won the 1991 Brit Award for "Best Producer".
As they continued releasing only four singles as Electra, in Full Frequency Range Recordings (FFRR) founded and run by Radio 1's Pete Tong, the duo created a new alias under the name Perfecto, they remixed Massive Attack's "Safe From Harm" single as well as many others. Grace was formed in the late 1990s, consisting of Oakenfold and Osborne and various singers, including jazz singer Dominique Atkins, and Patti Low.
Tours and nightclubs (1992-2000)
It was not until 1992 when U2 released their song "Even Better Than the Real Thing", the Perfecto remix reached a higher charted position than the original song. In 1993 with the success of his last remix as Perfecto, he was hired by U2 to provide the warm-up sonics to their Zoo TV world tour, and as a result he became known as a superstar deejay as he replaced BP Fallon on the 1993 legs in Europe and Australia, New Zealand, and Japan with more than fifty shows in Zooropa '93 and Zoomerang from May 7 to December 10 of the same year.
"There's no chance whatsoever. Seb Fontaine is our resident and is contracted until the end of the year. Paul will be doing some dates and playing Creamfields but that's it. I think his reason to leave (Home) had more to do with increased demands on his time in the US." — said a spokesperson from Cream to .
"The reason he left was simply because he had so much on this summer and he felt it wouldn't have been fair to play one week and not the other." — added an Oakenfold spokesperson.
"I disagreed with the way the club was going and it's time to move on." — responded Paul Oakenfold.
He later began producing his own tracks as well as continuing remixing songs from popular artists which became successful hits. The reason for this rise in public admiration was his adoption of a new breed of dance music called Goa, something he discovered on the beaches of Goa in India and fused with similar sounding European tracks to create his own distinct sound. He took this to the mainstream when in 1994 he created a two-hour set for BBC Radio 1's Essential Mix. This set became known as the Goa Mix which is still broadcast on the BBC radio network. In 1995, he became the first DJ to play on the main stage at the Glastonbury Festival for 90,000 people which he considers his favorite gig. His album Perfecto Fluoro became an instant masterpiece in every major club and college campus in Boston, and the #1 essential dance collection of Boston Beat during 1996 with Jamiroquai's Travelling Without Moving. The group Grace dissolved in 1997 as Oakenfold was touring as a performance DJ more frequently and could not commit to recording.
On June 9, 1997 Paul created Global Underground 004: Paul Oakenfold, Live in Oslo (GU004) which is a double mix CD in the Global Underground series, compiled and mixed by Paul, it is the first work he created for GU. The mix was recorded live at Cosmopolite Club in Oslo, Norway, as part of the official launch of the Quart Festival. It showcases Paul Oakenfold's eclectic taste in music at the time, as the mix combines drum and bass, progressive house & progressive trance, and goa trance. In 1997, Paul mixed one disc of the double album Fantazia House Collection 6, a UK house music compilation series that had been massively successful at the time. After a short spell as a member of the band Grace, Paul became Cream's resident DJ from 1997 - 1999. During this time, he began to concentrate on the release of Tranceport in 1998.
In 1998 DJ Magazine inaugurated its online edition of a poll which takes place yearly worldwide for electronic dance music. Carl Cox was the first deejay to take first place in 1997 when the poll began but in 1998 Paul took the first place in "DJmag's Top 100 DJs", since the opening date of the poll, the amount of votes more than tripled, and Paul Oakenfold was crowned people's champion for the first and second time as in 1999 there were thirty-one new entries with four women and Paul Oakenfold took it again. With the two-year contract as a resident in Liverpool's Cream it was until 1999 when he released Resident: Two Years of Oakenfold at Cream on Virgin. Thrive Records, the US distributor for early Global Underground releases had a different numbering scheme for the Global Underground albums, due to this Global Underground 007: Paul Oakenfold, New York (GU007) was released as (GU002) in the United States only, the compilation was released on May 25, 1998 with the US release on Jan 19, 1999. This was the second production from Paul with GU and it contained trance, drum and bass, progressive house, progressive trance, breakbeat and Downtempo, this became his last work with GU.
In 1999, he left the UK and Europe; he risked his fame and his profile, he moved to the USA, a place in which he met once with the jazz influence from New York in the early 80's. It had been ten years since he had contact with the style of the United States, dance music had not been as popular as it is nowadays, (see 1999 in music) but he went on with the US tour. A speculation had aroused about Paul leaving London superclub Home (nightclub) to return to Cream (nightclub) at Liverpool, but instead he moved due to his increasing demand in foreign countries mostly in The Americas, he toured across North and South America were he met Argentine deejay Hernan Cattaneo.
In 2000 he created fourteen tracks of jazz, soul, house and goa based styles with Mitchell Oakenfold, twenty-four FX and scratches loops and sounds were included too, consisting each of six seconds; the album cover says "Only for DJs and Producers", the album was released on Music of Life and has never been described as his first studio album, it only included useful tools for deejays.
Deals and barriers (2000-2001)
Oakenfold's next project took him to club Pacha in Ibiza for the summer, before returning to America for the Burning Man festival in August; Even though he had spoken extensively to the press about breaking barriers with the US, the DJ/producer said he felt his "Stateside" ambitions were not unique. Together with drum and bass maestro Aphrodite, he sold out the 10,000 capacity of the Red Rocks stadium in Colorado. He also kept presenting the Perfecto Nights for a year in Pacha, but he decided to host for a second year and he recruited Hernan Cattaneo as his co-resident at the club which has a capacity of 3,500 guests. "Every artist all over the world wants to do well in America and I'm not different from any [other] artist." — explained Paul.
"I used to warm up for him in Argentina... He started supporting me a lot by sending me records and speaking about me in Europe. Then he called me to be part of the Perfecto tour in the UK and America and now Ibiza." — explained Cattaneo.
"Like anyone else, it is important for me to crack America. I spend every second month in the US and I play every night, I realise how difficult it is and how much work it takes." — said Oakenfold about his success in the US. With the success of Tranceport and the mix compilations he created for GU, he released two DJ Mixes known as Perfecto Presents: Travelling and Perfecto Presents: Another World, both released in 2000 as double disc albums. The compilation traces Paul's hip-hop sense as well as underground disco, the compilation includes Quiver's remix of Led Zeppelin's "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" with a passive rock feel to it. The compilation sold 13,000 copies at counter sales in its first week, and over 80,000 copies were shipped to stores across the US. While in the US he met actor Jack Nicholson in a Lakers match, it was Paul's first Basketball match.
Paul joined Seb Fontaine and Timo Maas for Cream's event at Nation, before travelling to play at the Ministry of Sound event at the Millennium Dome, London. He performed with The Dreem Team, who broadcasted live on Radio 1 from 1:00 am to 3:00 am. In 2001, Oakenfold took part in the first Area Festival tour. This tour featured Incubus, Carl Cox, Orb, OutKast, and The Roots. He later released a new compilation album, Perfecto Presents: Ibiza; The album features the essence which has inspired his dance music focused on Ibiza.
Global Underground sold over 150,000 copies of Paul Oakenfold's previous Global Underground: New York, A spokesperson for the label revealed that the increasing demand for UK dance music in the US had been increasing in the last couple of years, the country covered at this time over two-thirds of the label's sales. The Global Underground New York office opened in on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan. The Mekka Electronic Music Festival, otherwise known as the "electronic Lollapallooza" took place in ten cities in the US and Canada during August and September, including New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and San Francisco. The event featured Paul, Armand van Helden, De La Soul, LTJ Bukem, Josh Wink, Derrick Carter, Roni Size, Deep Dish, BT, Crystal Method, Carl Craig and Überzone. Since Oakenfold had been working in the American market for a long time especially during 2001, he moved to Los Angeles to work on film soundtracks and to intensify his DJing commitments Stateside. In 2001 he created the soundtrack for the film Swordfish, Swordfish: The Album contained a transformation of "Planet Rock" into a seven minute breakbeat trance anthem. Most of the tracks are collaborations with Andy Gray, the remix of N.E.R.D.'s "Lapdance" which gained total notability from other tracks. The film was directed by Dominic Sena and starred Hugh Jackman, John Travolta, Halle Berry, Don Cheadle, and Vinnie Jones, the soundtrack was produced under Village Roadshow and Warner Bros. and distributed through London-Sire Records. Paul recorded a track with Crazy Town vocalist Shifty Shellshock at the end of the year for his new album. In an interview with Rolling Stone in the US, Shellshock said that the track known as "Starry Eyed Surprise" was created after the pair met at a Crazy Town show.
Bunkka (2002-2004)
On 2002, Bunkka became his first official studio album when he signed to Maverick; Bunkka is a compilation of styles which Paul has learned to mix throughout his career, the blending in of progressive trance with goa makes the album different from other conventional dance album. The name "Bunkka" comes from Peter Gabriel's studio in the UK, where the album was recorded. An extended play was released featuring live versions of four songs under Peoplesound Records. It is also Oakenfold's best selling album to date, with sales largely exceeding 1,000,000 (1 million) copies worldwide.
"I'm a big fan of Nelly Furtado and she's on the record. She's got this wonderful way about her, she's extremely talented and a great vocalist. Most of all she's good fun, she doesn't take it as seriously as some people do."
"I’d always wanted to do something that represented by own musical background... I grew up on pop music, I love guitar bands and I was very influenced and involved in hip-hop during the early days, so I wanted to build from those roots upwards rather than doing a contemporary dance record." — said Paul Oakenfold on several interviews.
The album features the vocals from singers from Jane’s Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell on "Time of Your Life" and Shifty Shellshock of Los Angeles rock and rap band Crazy Town on "Starry Eyed Surprise" with popular Ice Cube on "Get Em Up", Tricky and Nelly Furtado on "The Harder They Come". The album contains the appearances of Asher D of So Solid Crew on "Ready Steady Go" and Grant Lee Philips is also included as part of the disc with Carmen Rizzo's version of his song "Motion", founder of the 90’s Los Angeles rock band, Grant Lee Buffalo. Bunkka also provided the start to three new artists, Carla Werner on the smashing single "Southern Sun", Tiff Lacey on "Hypnotized" and Emiliana Torrini on "Hold Your Hand"; Hunter S. Thompson's spoken words are provided on "Nixon's Spirit". The world-renowned Pakistani musician Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's composition was adpated in an electronic version on the tracks "Zoo York". In 2002, Q magazine named Paul in their list of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die". In 2002 Oakenfold said to have struggled with dyslexia as a child and has stated his intention to help dyslexic children.
In 2002, Paul remixed David Arnold's widely popular "James Bond Theme", the song was released under Warner Bros. Records and was followed by the album's next two singles after "Starry Eyed Surprise", "Ready Steady Go" and "Southern Sun". "Souther Sun" with Carla Werner was first issued as a B-Side of "Ready Steady Go" until it was included on Tiësto's In Search of Sunrise 3: Panama compilation with his own remix of the song. "Southern Sun" became a smashing hit as it was then released as the A-Side of "Ready Steady Go" in mid-2002, "Ready Steady Go" was featured in Saab commercials, the EA Sports game Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003, THQ game Juiced, the pilot for the television program Las Vegas, NASCAR theme song for 2006, It appears in the video game series Dance Dance Revolution in DDR Ultramix for the Xbox, Fastlane episode "Dogtown" and the Alias episode "Snowman". In an earlier episode, "The Imposter", of Radio Free Roscoe, a 2005 series on The N, a character Travis Strong DJed to the song, acting as if it were his own. It has more recently been used in the film adaptation of Anthony Horowitz's novel Stormbreaker, The Bourne Identity and it was reproduced with Korean lyrics for the movie Collateral, the song has also been used during the performances of extreme freestyle water ski jumpers, the song later became the theme song for the TV Show TRL Italy since 2003 until 2005. An EP of "The Harder They Come" was released on Perfecto and featured other works from Oakenfold and other artists. On the Creamfields event, in 2002 at Speke Airfield DJ's like Paul Oakenfold, Seb Fontaine, Paul Van Dyk performed along Dave Clarke, Jon Carter, Richie Hawtin and Felix Da Housecat, the event also featured live appearances from Basement Jaxx, All Saints, Death In Vegas and Moloko. In 2003 he released the fourth single of his album, "Hypnotized" which became successful enough to be included on Paul's next compilation from the "Perfecto Presents..." series, "Perfecto Presents: Great Wall" included the Deepsky remix of the song as well as tracks like Motorcycle's "As the Rush Comes", Björk's "Pagan Poetry", UNKLE's remix of Ian Brown's "F.E.A.R." and Paul's recent remix of Madonna's "Hollywood" song.
With the event of Creamfields that took place in 2004, Oakenfold felt inspired enough to release a compilation of songs he played during the event as well as tracks influenced by the environment and the vibe of deejays like Paul Van Dyk, Armin Van Buuren, Ferry Corsten, Judge Jules, Fergie, Tall Paul, Eddie Halliwell, Chris Lawrence, Adam Sheridan, Shan, and Alex Kidd at the Cream/Goodgreef & Mixmag Arena.
Greatest hits and side work (2005-2007)
In 2005, Oakenfold was contacted by the car manufacturer Toyota to create a free promotional CD available from aygo.com to promote a new Toyota car, the CD contained only seven songs which he worked with Ian Green, the album was entitled "Feed Your Mind".
During Paul's career he has remixed a variety of songs from Madonna, like "What It Feels Like For A Girl", "Hollywood", "American Life", "Sorry" and later in 2008 "Give It 2 Me" from her album "Hard Candy", Paul went on tour with Madonna for two months opening her presentation in the Confessions Tour, previously he had supported her in 2004 at Slane Castle in Ireland. His sets lasted for an hour and a half, followed by Madonna's two-hour show.
Paul Oakenfold remixed the classic Transformers theme as the theme song for then-new television series, Transformers Cybertron. He also contributed with his single "Beautiful Goal" for the FIFA series on 2005. His second studio album, "A Lively Mind" was released on June 6, 2006. Receiving unsuccessful reviews, the first single "Faster Kill Pussycat" which is a collaboration with the actress Brittany Murphy was released on May 2, 2006. The second single was "Sex 'n' Money", both songs stand out from the rest as most of the album only provides a trance-related feel that can be only used in clubs or TV commercials. Gregory Jeffries from Allmusic stated the album might have been in the nominated albums of dance music in 1997 but not in 2006, as the album includes guitars with disco sounds that might be only appealing to trance addicts.
"I’ve done so many remixes from the likes of the Rolling Stones to Snoop Dogg etc, but you can only get a certain amount on the CD. It was difficult for me but I had to choose what I wanted and what I felt were the best mixes that showcased my art in the best way." — said Paul Oakenfold.
With the film scores and soundtrack productions he did for $90,000,000 (90 million) movies, he decided in 2007 to play live at the Boston Pops which created a piece of orchestral music with electronic music. The event took place in Miami for 10,000 people with a 75-piece orchestra, he wrote a piece of music which he described as "difficult". In 2007 he was nominated to 2 International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) at the Winter Music Conference (WMC), Best Underground Dance Track for "Faster Kill Pussycat" and Best Full Length DJ Mix CD for "A Lively Mind". 2007 saw the publication of the first official biography of Paul Oakenfold, written by Richard Norris of The Grid and Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve fame. Paul Oakenfold: The Authorised Biography was published by Bantam Press on 24 September, 2007. Oakenfold is said to be a big fan of Chelsea F.C.. It was thought that he played a zombie in the movie 28 Weeks Later however this is incorrect, he was offered the opportunity but turned it down. He also scored the soundtrack for the 2007 Japanese CGI anime film Vexille.
In October 2007 he released his Greatest Hits & Remixes, Vol. 1 which features his best performance tracks. Paul Oaknefold has created more than one hundred remixes, and has sold over 5,000,000 (5 million) long plays. More recently, he has been touring in British universities to promote his new album and autobiography. The tribute album was released in November in the United Kingdom with a 2 x CD set and a 3 x CD version with the same number of songs, it was also released in the United States with only 20 tracks in one CD, it featured some remixes from the original version but it also included, two new remixes which are; Justin Timberlake's "My Love" song and his remix of Hans Zimmer's "Jack Theme Suite" which was used for the film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Exclusive 2008 Remixes from Paul were also included from Mark Ronson's "Stop Me" song, Radiohead's "Everything In Its Right Place", Eisbaer from Grovezone, the unforgettable "Missing" by Everything But The Girl and a remix of Paul's own "Southern Sun". Releases with Catalog#: UL 1602-2 included a DVD of live show and documentary. The compilation consists of tracks which influenced his career and made his personality what it is nowadays, with artists like The Cure, Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses, Massive Attack, U2, Olive, The Smashing Pumpkins, Madonna and Underworld.
Decade of dance and film scores (2008-Present)
In 2008 he released the last single from his last studio album, "Not Over" which is a new version of the tracks he produced while working with Osborne as Grace which was known as "Not Over Yet" which he collaborated with Ryan Tedder from One Republic, the song was also covered by Klaxons as "It's Not Over Yet". In 2008 Oakenfold has worked on the film scores of various films and television programs such as Californication, The Heavy, Fever, The Bourne Conspiracy, and Speed Racer. In mid-July Paul ended his world tour promoting his greatest hits album, he has also joined Madonna again in her new Sticky & Sweet Tour in London, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
. After touring he will begin his residency in Las Vegas on August 30, where he has also planned to release a new album titled "Decade of Dance", but meanwhile he has begun scoring the film Humboldt Park.
Fall of 2008 begins his first Resident DJ position in the United States. “Paul Oakenfold Presents: Perfecto Las Vegas” was conceptualized specifically for Rain Nightclub, the legendary nightclub and concert venue at the Palms Casino Resort known for its special effects and international headliner acts.
The summer of 2009 will witness Paul's latest artist album, Pop Killer, as well as a appearance at the Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee, June 2009.
From July to August 2009, Paul will again open Madonna's concerts from the Sticky & Sweet Tour on Europe.
Discography
Albums
Studio Albums
'DJ Tools'
'DJ Mixes'
DVDs
Filmography
External links
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