Trance doyen, Hollywood movie soundtrack composer, boss of Perfecto Records: Paul Oakenfold is all these things and more. A veritable electronic music institution, his residency at Rain Nightclub in Las Vegas pioneered the explosion of dance culture there and he continues to be a towering presence in worldwide trance circles. This year, Paul has been spending a lot more time on the road, touring and DJing, with the two-disc ‘We Are Planet Perfecto 02’, the follow-up to last year’s successful compilation, available to stream on Spotify from August 3 before its release on August 10. We caught up with the man to raid his musical closet...
Words: HELENE STOKES
What’s the record that sums up your childhood?
“My dad was a musician, so the first music I suppose I heard — and I wasn’t conscious of even knowing what that was, as strange as that sounds — was the Beatles. Because my mum used to play them. I think I was about five and I never realized why I knew the lyrics of all the songs, and later on in life, I had a conversation with my dad and he said they used to play them all the time, ‘She Loves You’, things like that. “As a five-year-old, you’re running around and hearing music. I learnt to play instruments, and come from a very musical family. It certainly wasn’t the first time I got into music consciously, that was when I went to Groove Records, really.”
What’s the first record you bought?
“T-Rex ‘Get It On’. I grew up listening to Radio One [the biggest national station in the UK], I grew up listening to all kinds of music and it had a big influence on my life, from producing Happy Mondays to working in a lot of genres of music. I’ve worked with reggae, rock, electronic, and I think that influence is down to Radio One. I’m a fan, I always was, I love the idea of playing all kinds of music and sharing. Living in America for the past eight or nine years, you really don’t get that. You get one station playing hip-hop, one station playing rock, and so on. You miss things, I think it’s an important part of such a great musical country.”
What’s the most embarrassing record in your collection?
“It’s definitely got to be Donny Osmond! I’ve got a few. At the time I bought it, I liked it, but looking back, it was very cheesy. ‘Puppy Love’ ‘…and they called it puppy love …’ [laughs].”
What’s the track that’s guaranteed to make you cry?
“‘Puppy Love’ by Donny Osmond! [laughs] 80
Guaranteed to make me cry? I don’t know if there is anything that I put on and I would cry. The wonderful thing about music is that it brings out various different emotions. Music and film can really spark those emotions a lot more, because you’re seeing a tragic emotion that you can relate to and that can push the button in terms of making you cry. And that’s the art of writing music for film, if you can really push that button; if someone is going from a scene where someone is really happy to making them cry, that is a big achievement. In terms of music, Sade would make me feel solemn, but there’s nothing that’s made me cry.”
What’s an album that you’re currently into?
“Unfortunately, and I’m not comfortable with it, I’m not listening to albums, I don’t get time to do that. I’ve got a hundred tracks that I get sent every week, we’re so saturated with music, this is the bad side about the internet. The great thing about the record industry, you had a&r, they would go through all this music that’s crap, and then their job was to filter it and deliver it to us, the consumer, the good music. And out of that good music that they sent you, about 40% you could probably play. Now, I get a hundred tracks a week, just like I’m doing now, prior to you calling is listening to music. And out of a hundred tracks, I’ll probably find five that are worth playing.”
What’s the most valuable record in your collection?
“ I think if we take money out of the equation, a few records like when they sent over a vinyl of the Madonna record that I produced, because I never thought in a million years I’d be producing Madonna. My first artist album, ‘Bunkka’, when I got that, it meant a lot to me. These are the kinds of things that are a personal achievement.”
What’s your all-time favourite record of all-time?
“‘Puppy Love’! [laughs] My favourite album of all-time is Marvin Gaye ‘What’s Going On’. Strange that you can still listen to a record that’s so old. I think that record, lyrically, the strength of the music, the tone of his voice, it really says a lot about the way people were. And today, the crying shame about that record is that it sounds like he’s singing about now. I think that record is 40-years-old. It really was an important part of growing up and listening to music, because I never knew lyrics could be so meaningful, that was a real turning point for me. It’s certainly life-changing.”
Paul OakenfOld
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82