Monday, 17 December 2012

Goto80 - Last Christmas (Hot Digi Remix)

It's that time of year and, once again, there is a definite slew of Christmas-themed records vying for our attention from all the latest and greatest singers and bands out there.

With that in mind I've ignored the whole lot of them and gone back almost a decade to enjoy 2003's release from Goto80 - a Swedish chiptune musician who works primarily with the Commodore 64 computer (my own personal favourite). Although listed as a 2005 release in his discography, Goto80's cover of Wham!'s 'Last Christmas' was included on the 2003 compilation 'The 8bits of Christmas' from 8bitpeoples, a collection of eight Christmas songs created by artists on a variety of different classic machines (NES, GameBoy, Spectrum, VIC20, etc.).

I've chosen to highlight Goto80's song because it not only gets my nostalgic juices flowing for the Commodore 64, and I also happen to quite like the Wham! original anyway, but because it's a pretty good cover version within the chosen medium. Naturally - considering the limitations of the equipment used - there are no vocals, but the tune progresses nicely from a relatively simple interpretation of the chorus before introducing different elements to vary and fill out the sound. The verses are mostly ignored, but I think that was the right decision to take in this case where voice cannot be included.

All in all, this is an enjoyable and festive song from a highly regarded composer within the chiptune scene and well worth a listen by anyone with a hankering for something a little retro.



Official: www.goto80.com
Collective: www.8bitpeoples.com
Twitter: twitter.com/goto80

"Pop music is aspirin and the blues are vitamins" - Peter Tork

2 comments:

  1. How do you feel about remixes in general? I'm not a fan.

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    1. I'm not for or against them, really. I've heard plenty of remixes that are actually really good, and a few that actually improve on the original. From an artistic perspective, it's difficult to argue with the original creator, but sometimes there is more creativity in a remix than perhaps we give credit to. Varies from song to song, I guess.

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