With writer/producer Cory Conley and Jennifer Rivers on vocals, Pleasure Center's latest single "Love's A Basic Freedom" can't help but be a hit. Lyrically, this is a gay pride anthem to the nth degree, with lyrics like "If you are willing to believe that love is something that is free / All my brothers and my sisters dancing to a different drummer's beat." Unfortunately, the chorus isn't nearly as diverse (so to speak) consisting mainly of the song's title simply repeated over and over. But with a solid assortment of remixes to choose from, "Love's A Basic Freedom" is sure to be a helluva hot homosexual hit for years to come.
Both the original/main mix and Ananyi's Reconstruction Mix (purchase/download) (isn't every remix technically a "reconstruction mix"?) are heavy on the synths, and musical enough so that you could sit down at the piano and play the instrumentation yourself, if you're of a mind to do so. Cory's Flags & Whistles is an interestingly-EQ'd packet of club pipes, hot bassline, whistles, hi-hats, and one that I would love to hear in a club. Plummeting even further towards the tribal end of the spectrum, however, DJ Ranny's mix is a characteristic assembly of homogeneous beats, unchanging basslines, and monotonous one-note synth stabs. In other words, exactly what a typical DJ Ranny mix sounds like; and god bless him, the guy's got fans, so he must be doing something right.
The "best buildup award" goes to DJ Gabriel (purchase/download), whose nearly 11-minute long mix is a journey of quick, spritely synth layers and echoed vocals over full, rich house beats. Despite this, my favorite version of "Love's A Basic Freedom" is actually the Main Extended Mix (purchase/download), which I think fits the staccato rhythm pattern of the vocals best. It's clear what Pleasure Center intended to do with this single: construct a catchy, hooky jam that will stand the test of time and become a gay pride classic, played for years to come, along the lines of I Will Survive, We Are Family, and It's Raining Men. Only time will tell if they succeed.
Released September 2008 on Northcross Media.
