Dancemania EX × Trance Paradise

Trance Paradise 5
Release Date: 5/23/07
Price: 1886 yen

Now this is more like it! Trance Paradise 5 was about 8 months late, but it was a return to form after two awful releases (Cover Trance and Hostrance). EMI commissioned a lot of new songs for the release, including no less than 6 Dancemania remixes. My personal favorites were the Delaction remix of “Dub-I-Dub” (which made up for the ho-hum Dank-One remix on Hime Trance) and the amazingly epic Nasca Joker remix of “Beautiful Man.” The resurgence of “Beautiful Man” was a truly perplexing thing. It had appeared once on Dancemania in 1999, and I remember always loving the song, so I was ecstatic when it reappeared on Dancemania Treasure, and even more excited when it got a brand new trance remix.

“Up,” “Hung Up,” “You Raise Me Up,” (notice a trend?) and “Sky High” round out the new remixes. “Up” suffered from a lack of verses, but DJ Kaya and DJ Joker managed to infuse “Sky High” with more energy than the original DJ Kaya mix.

There were also 5 new Japanese originals from various DJs like Oriental Space and Heavens Wire. “Day Break” is the best of the bunch, somehow being both mellow and high-energy at the same time.

I do think that overall Trance Paradise 4 ended up being a more solid album, if only because TP5 had some unfortunate song choices when it came to licensed tracks. I was never a huge Handz Up fan, so the Cascada song was useless to me. And “Carlito (Cannon Cracker Remix)” is pretty lousy compared to Delaction’s superior version.

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