I’m going to take sort of a break from our coverage of all new things related to the new album for today’s article, mostly because, as far as I know, there haven’t been any remixes of any of the new material yet. The closest I can get is Ordinary Love, which has had a ton of third party remixes. I’ve chosen three of my favorites and covered them below.

The first white-label remix of Ordinary Love that I find to be worth mentioning is the DJ Tif Private Bootleg mix. Tif’s mix starts off with some subtle hand drums that serve to attract the listener’s attention. I still nearly gave up on this mix not long into it, though – after the hand drum intro, the original song plays unchanged for about two minutes before anything really exciting happens. Fortunately, I have a hard and fast rule about giving songs at least one complete listen before forming an opinion about them, which meant that I wasn’t allowed to write this off when my instincts said to, about 90 seconds into it. I say “fortunately” because if I had turned it off, I would have missed out on what turned out to be an engaging and enjoyable remix. This version of the song goes far beyond it’s humble origins as an unofficial mix with a beat that sounds tailor made for the song, and which is catchy on its own without intruding on or conflicting with the vocals or other elements of the original that the mixer chose to keep.

Another mix that deserves accolades for its subtlety is the Pretty Pink remix, with a syncopated rhythm track and hypnotically throbbing bass-line, this is another mix wherein the creator doesn’t attempt to unmake U2’s winning original, but instead flavors it with their own artistic flourishes to create something new, exciting and interesting. The six minute track contains much to capture and hold the listener’s imagination, so much so that the formidable seeming track-length has gone by long before interest is lost. A nice job all the way around.

The final version I want to bring to your attention today is the Devin Wild Sub-Zero Project mix, which breaks pretty much every rule I have for third-party mixes but still manages to work. Normally, I automatically dislike anything that messes with the tempo of the vocal track, or plays it a different speed than the original. I also normally prefer, as evidenced by my above picks, mixes that make subtle changes to the original but which keep relatively  close to the track as it was initially recorded. This track is loud and garish, completely turning the mood of the original on its ear. it also speeds up Bono’s vocal to match the speed of the synth part. Despite flying so fiercely in the face of everything I usually look for, this hard-ish techno mix is big and bold and exciting in all the same ways that U2’s music is. In fact, I think that the lads in the band might even find themselves enjoying this mix, if only because it’s so “in-your-face”, which is a descriptor that U2 have never shied away from.