Mark Ronson Live

‘Producer du jour' does covers aplenty

Mark Ronson is the favourite party DJ for lots of New Yoikers and celebs – so I hear – and is currently polishing his mantel as ‘producer du jour’.

His new album, Versions, will do nothing to harm his reputation, although the initially tantalising covers are likely to fall fowl on repeated plays to the trumpets and motown flashback beats which are now his signature sound.

Mark was happily airing his covers at Fabric, and the crowd were having fun, especially when Daniel Merriweather popped up onstage in a Curiousity Killed the Cat-esque black hat to belt out new single ‘Stop Me’. This track is nothing short of brilliant – Morrissey and the Supremes merge together like beans and toast – and it was great to hear live, not only because it gave us a rest from the rather rubbish MC: surely the first rule of MC club is to not sing over great rappers’ rhymes? Jay-Z he wasn’t, but he was the one onstage with the mic, so we were subjected to his deluded aspirations.

So, ‘Stop Me’ sounded great. Tracks from Versions, especially ‘Oh My God’ a la Lily Allen with some dare-you-not-to-dance beats, sounded great. But why, oh why, does such a feted DJ play out such obvious hip hop songs? Are they forced to follow a fixed set-list of predictability? You could have passed the time placing bets on what ‘classic’ he was going to play next. Dead Prez’ ‘Hip Hop’? MOP’s ‘Ante Up’? All that and more. On another occasion it would have been good fun, but Mark Ronson played to a crowd with high expectations, and he failed to match them.


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