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Paul Oakenfold

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Paul Oakenfold

Paul Oakenfold (born August 30, 1963 in Greenhithe, Kent[1] England) is a record producer and one of the best-known Trance DJs worldwide.

History

In 1987, Oakenfold spent several months in Ibiza, Spain, where he fell in love with the dance club music (see 1987 in music). Using influences from Ibiza's sound, Italo disco, soul and house, Oakenfold produced Happy Mondays' Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches, followed by remixes for U2, Massive Attack, Arrested Development, The Cure, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Simply Red, New Order and The Shamen with production partner Steve Osborne under the collaborative name 'Perfecto'. Many of these remixes were released under his label Perfecto Records.

He first started playing in clubs as a teenager and soon built up a reputation as a top party DJ. However, it wasn't until the early 1990s when his name was associated with the DJ elite. The reason for this rise in public admiration was his adoption of a new breed of dance music called Trance, something he discovered on the beaches of Goa in India and fused with similar sounding European records 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 and to this day is the most requested broadcast on the BBC radio network.

In 1997, Oakenfold 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. He brought his distinctive style to the mix.

After a short spell as a member of the band Grace, Oakenfold became Cream's resident DJ from 1997 to 1999. During this time, he began to concentrate on the release of Tranceport in 1998. Oakenfold followed Tranceport with arguably his most successful album Perfecto Presents Another World which introduced millions to his mixing skills. His popularity across the Atlantic is slowly growing thanks to his work on the film soundtracks of Swordfish, The Matrix Reloaded, Collateral, Herbie Rides Again, Die Another Day, for which he remixed The James Bond Theme. He later worked on the James Bond video game, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, contributed to the soundtrack of the Japanese anime film "Appleseed" in 2004 and provided the theme song for the FIFA series of video games since 2005. He also contributes music to Konami's Dance Dance Revolution series of video games, particularly the versions for Microsoft's Xbox console.

In 2001 Paul took part in the first Area Festival tour. This tour featured Incubus, Carl Cox, Orb, OutKast, and The Roots.

In 2002, Q magazine named Oakenfold in their list of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die". In the same year, Oakenfold released his first solo album, called Bunkka featuring artists like Nelly Furtado, Tricky ("The Harder They Come"), the world-renowned Pakistani musician Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan ("Zoo York"), Ice Cube ("Get Em Up"), and Shifty Shellshock, then the lead singer of Crazy Town ("Starry Eyed Surprise"). His latest effort is 2006's A Lively Mind.

In 2004, Oakenfold's song "Ready Steady Go" was reproduced with some Korean lyrics for the movie Collateral, and was included in the film soundtrack. "Ready Steady Go" was also used in Saab commercials, the EA Sports game Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003, the pilot for the television program Las Vegas, the film The Bourne Identity (during a car chase scene), NASCAR theme song for 2006, 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 (obviously acting as if it were his own). It has more recently been used in the film adaptation of Anthony Horowitz's novel Stormbreaker. He's also tried his hand at acting by playing one of the zombies in the 2007 smash 28 Weeks Later.

'A Lively Mind' was released on June 6 2006. The first single 'Faster Kill Pussycat' is a collaboration with the actress Brittany Murphy, and was released on May 2 2006. Oakenfold's 2006 CD was released by Maverick Records.

Also, in 2006, to accompany the new Transformers movie, Oakenfold remixed the Transformers theme. {citation needed}

Oakenfold is a big fan of Chelsea F.C..

His name is also associated with a song called "see it", featured in the second stage of "Frequency", a game for the PS2. The game was released November 20 2001, though the song itself is very inconspicuous and is rarely, if at all, mentioned of; it also does not seem to be on any of his albums.


Dyslexia

Oakenfold is known to have struggled with dyslexia as a child[2] and has stated his intention to help dyslexic children.[3]

Discography

Albums

Year Title
1994 Journeys By DJ Volume 5: Journey Through The Spectrum
1995 A Voyage Into Trance
1996 Perfecto Fluoro
1997 Global Underground 004
1998 Tranceport
Global Underground 007
1999 Essential Millennium with Pete Tong & Fatboy Slim
Resident: Two Years of Oakenfold at Cream
2000 Perfecto Presents: Travelling
Perfecto Presents: Another World
2001 Swordfish: The Album
Perfecto Presents Ibiza
2002 Bunkka
2003 Perfecto Presents: Great Wall
2004 Creamfields
2005 Perfecto Presents: The Club
2006 A Lively Mind

Singles

Electra

as part of the 'Balearic House' group 'Electra'

  • "Jibaro" (FFRR Records - 1988) # 54 UK
  • "It's Your Destiny" / "Autumn Love" (FFRR Records - 1989) # 51 UK

Solid Gold Easy Amex

remix of former Red Box b-side

Paul Oakenfold

as Paul Oakenfold presents Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force:

as Oakenfold:

as Oakenfold with vocals by Shifty Shellshock Of Crazy Town

as Oakenfold with vocals by Nelly Furtado and Tricky

  • "The Harder They Come" (Perfecto Records - 2003) # 38 UK

as Oakenfold:

as Oakenfold ft Brittany Murphy

as Oakenfold ft Pharrell

Paul Oakenfold with Steve Osborne

as Rise:

  • "The Single" (Perfecto / EastWest Records - 1994) # 70 UK

as Perfecto Allstarz:

  • "Reach Up" (Perfecto - 1995) # 6 UK

as Virus:

  • "Sun" (Perfecto - 1995) # 62 UK
  • "Moon" (Perfecto - 1997) # 36 UK

as Grace:

  • "Not Over Yet" (Perfecto - 1995) # 6 UK, #4 IE
  • "I Want To Live" (Perfecto - 1995) # 30 UK
  • "Skin on Skin" (Perfecto - 1996) #21 UK
  • "Down to Earth" (Perfecto - 1996) #20 UK
  • "If I Could Fly" (Perfecto - 1996) #29 UK
  • "Hand in Hand" (Perfecto - 1997) #38 UK
  • "Down To Earth Remix" (Perfecto - 1997) #29 UK

Paul Oakenfold and Andy Gray

as Element 4

  • "Big Brother UK TV Theme" (Channel 4 Music - 2000) #4 UK

Remixes

See also

References

  1. ^ "Paul Oakenfold".
  2. ^ www.literacytrust.org.uk - Reading Champions 2002 Paul Oakenfold
  3. ^ Passed/Failed: An education in the life of Paul Oakenfold, DJ and producer
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