The other day I was looking for one of my favorite songs, “Magalehna,” by Sergio Mendes, one that I actually fell in love with because of my time spent clubbing in Spain as an undergraduate. The song didn’t need to be synthesized; it is already a dance song! It’s got a hot Brazilian beat that gets you out of your seat and moving—more so than any song I’ve ever heard, hands down—and adding some stupid techno stuff to the song made it both redundant and annoying.
Can we leave dance songs, at least, as they are, rather than making them, um, dancier? It was bad enough when Enya’s lovely “Only Time,” a song that should never have been dance music, was chopped up into the worst dance song ever, let alone when an actual dance song is sent to the butcher to be made into chopped meat.