To celebrate Pride Month, Soulwax have released a remix of the late Sylvester’s 1978 disco classic “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).”
The 10-minute-long “Soulwax for Despacio” version adds some subtle flourishes to the iconic anthem, while still keeping the core of the original intact.
David and Stephen Dewaele of Soulwax shared, “Unlike other remixes where we usually replace most of the elements and make something radically different based around the vocal, we made this remix using only the parts we found on the original multitrack that we were so kindly given by the Sylvester estate.”
“Even though we have played this song a million times,” they continued, “we discovered a few elements that we had never heard before, like a crazy Patrick Cowley synth solo and somewhere hidden before the start of the multitrack, the ending of what sounds like a gospel version of ‘Mighty Real.’ It was a huge privilege to be asked to remix this seminal track and we hope that Sylvester will dance to it, wherever he is.”
Sylvester originally released “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” on his breakthrough sophomore album Step II. The song has been called “the cornerstone of gay disco” by music journalist Patrick Crowley, and was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” in 2019.
Sylvester’s music has been a cornerstone of Pride month for many years. In 2020, Sylvester was the subject of a compelling new mini-documentary Love Me Like You Should: The Brave and Bold Sylvester, produced for Pride 2020 by Amazon Music in collaboration with filmmaker Lauren Tabak and writer/consulting producer Barry Walters.
In Love Me Like You Should, Sylvester’s story comes to life once more and the true extent of his impact—inside and out of the music industry—is explored. The filmmakers also incorporate interviews with Billy Porter, The Weather Girls’ Martha Wash, Sylvester’s sister Bernadette Baldwin, biographer Josh Gamson and many others, too.
Buy or stream “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) (Soulwax For Despacio Remix).”
