The Miami Winter Music Conference is currently in full swing, and those of us not lucky enough to be there have to make do with reports from blogs, friends and anyone else sober enough to think about anything other than where the next party’s at. It has traditionally been the place where the tracks that will dominate the club soundsystems over the summer will be broken.  However, as time has rolled inevitably on it’s become less about those one or two elusive acetates that only the biggest names in the world have got their hands on. Now, pretty much everyone has instant access to more music than they could ever hope to consume in a lifetime, and those ‘hard to find’ tunes are becoming anything but.

More and more, it’s becoming easier to predict which tracks are going to be big at the conference, by judging the reactions of the crowds and connoisseurs in the week and months that proceed it. It’s no longer about playing your new tracks for the first time, but about cementing their position at the very top of the musical tree.



Most Rated Miami ’10 is a collection of tracks hoping to do exactly that; the tried and tested sound of the WMC as selected by Defected. It’s likely you’ve heard a few of them before, but the WMC is set to propel them to the next level. These are the tunes that – in our humble opinion – will be the bread and butter of all the top jocks this week. Pretty much every track has already been broken on the world’s dancefloors, but it’s the WMC that will separate the wheat from the chaff and the tracks that you’ll spend your summer singing along to from those you’ll probably never hear again.

With that in mind, we caught up with a few of the producers who have had their tracks included on the compilation to dig a little deeper into the stories behind them…

Daniel Bovie & Roy Rox ‘Love Me’ (ATFC Remix)

“It was great to get involved in the remix for my friends from Holland after I included the original on the London 10 album.  'Love Me' has an air of 'Speed Up' about it so I thought I'd have a crack and I think it's turned out ok (even though there's something sexually menacing about the lyrics)!”
ATFC

Rasmus Faber & Alf Tumble feat. Candi Staton ‘Wilder Side’

One day, just randomly, I made this crazy synth bassline. It was based around a pretty jazzy chord progression, but the way I played it with the sound I chose just made it really tough sounding! I think I was making my album at the time, so I was in a completely different mode, and just ended up leaving that bassline in the drawer. Lucky then that my good friend Alf Tumble found it when we were digging the crates in my studio. He demanded to let him take it back to his studio and work on it. He came back with an almost finished instrumental mix of Wilder Side. We thought we'd let it do the rounds and Defected was quick to pick it up! We kind of hoped that they would want a vocal on top, but we wouldn’t have dreamt of them hooking up with a heavyweight such as Candi Staton! That was a really nice surprise.”
Rasmus Faber

Candi Staton

“It’s just a fun record. It’s like a girl talking to a guy and she’s saying so much that I want to say: ‘I need your love in so many ways, the time is right, the mood is right, so bring out the wilder side in me tonight’. And she’s also saying ‘Hey, I’ve been depressed and sitting alone in the house a lot doing nothing, but I’ve got a side that you haven’t seen for a while so let’s bring it out! Let’s dance, let’s go to a club let’s enjoy ourselves tonight because I want to feel free!”
Candi Staton

Ridney ‘At Night’

"’At Night’ was inspired by the great music which Thomas Bangalter (one half of Daft Punk) released on his label Roule back in 1997. I wanted to re-create just simple, french-style club bangers. Taking a really nice groove and letting it rock the crowd.
Ridney

Susu Bobien ‘You Don’t Know’ (Muthafunkaz Remix)

‘You Don’t Know" is one of my favourite records of all time. When Strictly & Defected joined forces I made it known right away that I wanted to remix it with the MF crew. When I was at Basement Boys with Teddy Douglas & Karizma (when the track first came out in the 90's) we could not believe that record did not have our hands on it. It was a pleasure and an honour to work on "You Don’t Know", and I just hope that the rest of the world loves it as much as we do.
DJ Spen

Osunlade ‘Butterfly’ (Phil Asher Remix)

The song is about transformation and relief of suffering. The lyrics are about changing dark to light and the inspiration comes from my personal desire to change things for the better. In other words, it’s about doing my part in the universe for the better good of it all.
Osunlade

DJ Chus & Rob Mirage ‘Back 2 NY’

"’Back 2 NY’ is a record that we basically sat down and said "Let’s cut the bullshit and get down to real house music". This project was truly inspired by old school New York, our home.  By taking inspiration from back in the day House, Hip Hop and Disco with the pumping elements of today's sound we knew right away we had something special. We wanted to bring back the grooves, a perfect combination between old house vibe and modern production technics.”
DJ Chus

Candi Staton ‘Musical Freedom’ (the Shapeshifters Classic Re-work)

“The K.Klass boys re-worked this record with vocals from the Bunker Vaults with Candi's blessing. We heard it and immediately signed it as we are huge fans of the guys and Candi. We had already remixed 'You Got the Love' for Positiva some years previous and class it as one of our best mixes, so having the chance to work on her vocal again was a no brainer! The Big Fish Little Fish mix rocks any dancefloor and we are very proud to have Candi & K Klass on Nocturnal Groove.”
Simon Marlin

the Shapeshifters

DJ Gregory & Sidney Samson ‘Dama s Salon’

"I’m based in Amsterdam for a year now, as in Holland a lot of producers feel very connected with the mix of electronic music and all those new movements from Brazil, Angola, Columbia etc. The main idea for me was to record vocals in Luanda then work on the tracks with producers from Holland like Sidney Samson and Gregor Salto.  Sidney is part  of a new wave of producer in Holland,  and the guy behind the track  ‘Riverside’ A ‘Dama’ in Angola means ‘Lady’ , so Dama s Salon is ‘Lady in the Living Room’ and the song was writen  by Serafim Zacarias who is a seriously hot Kuduro producer."
DJ Gregory

X-Press 2 ‘Time’ (Riva Starr Remix)

We were inspired by a Joris Voorn track last year for the musical side of ‘Time’. We liked that kind of old 90s filter disco vibe he had going on. When we finished the backing track, we felt that a vocal would sit nice with it. I think our manager suggested James [Yuill]. We checked him out and knew that he was the man for us. He sent us a little idea that he had for the track and we then got him into the studio. A great singer/song writer and a lovely fella to boot!
Rocky

Words: Greg Sawyer

Most Rated Miami '10 is out 29th March - click to listen & pre-order