Alesso
Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1 [23-3-2012]

This is the first time I'm trying something like this, so don't be surprised and don't criticize me too much if the final work (the review) turns out to be rubbish.

As I already wrote in the review I did for Kaskade's album, I am a rocker who hides a party animal spirit. So if you want to make me happy, play me a Foo Fighters album, but if you want to pleasantly surprise me, there's nothing better than this set (it can't be called a concert, but a DJ set) that mister Alesso did for Pete Tong's show, aired on BBC Radio 1, the most important English radio station.

I'm talking about 2 non-stop hours of music going full blast, super-commercial, and therefore more accessible to the masses, even though it never falls into the banal. Ah yes, by 'banal' I mean the songs made by David Guetta: verse, cascading chorus, verse, cascading chorus, bridge, cascading chorus.

Along with the Swedish House Mafia, Alesso (also Swedish) is my favorite DJ, mainly thanks to this playlist that never fails. There isn't a single bad song in 2 hours, no moment that prompts me to skip forward on the player: everything is perfect. The real strength of this Essential Mix is the mash-up of various songs: I can't even describe the eargasm (eargasm, for those who aren't strong in English) I experienced while "Sending My Love" (R3hab & Swanky Tunes feat. Max C) overlapped with "The Island" by Pendulum, or when "Feel So Close" (Calvin Harris) intertwined with "Raise Your Head" (Alesso), or again when the vocal track of "Walking Alone" (Dirty South & Those Unusual Suspects feat. Erik Hecht) imposed itself on the rhythm of Rise (Michael Brun).

Regarding the mash-ups, the peak of quality is reached almost at the beginning, when 2 masterpieces like "Greyhound" (SHM) and "Antidote" (SHM & Knife Party) are glued together creating a perfect dancefloor anthem (even though "Greyhound" alone is already an anthem in itself).

But this Essential Mix isn't just about mash-ups.
In fact, among the '‘normal’' songs, there are real musts like "Years" (by Alesso himself), the great remix of "You & Me" (originally by Nero, the remix is by Dirty South), the overwhelming "Clash" (again Alesso), the famous "Calling (Lose My Mind)" (Alesso + Sebastian Ingrosso + Ryan Tedder) and, finally, the wonderful "Million Voices" by Otto Knows, also featured in the soundtrack of Tomorrowland 2012's aftermovie, a true gem, with a chorus that is both simple and perfectly fitting, which helps the track to get firmly lodged in the listener’s head. It will be difficult to get rid of it.

I also used to believe that being a DJ didn't take much, you just had to put on some records, but I must admit Alesso knows what he's doing (or maybe I’m just ignorant in the matter) and this Essential Mix not only gave me 2 hours of great music but also enriched my iPod's playlist, which now sees a nice HOUSE genre alongside Hardcore and Indie, full of songs ready to be blasted at full volume with Monster Beats in my ears.

A really great job, well done Alesso.

Here are the links (with respective setlists) to listen to the mix:
PART 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyIKzJAJ2Jc
PART 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRFiH1GAUk&feature=fvwrel