7 min readMar 4, 2020

A Good Megamix is Hard To Find

And on the eighth day Satan created the megamix for anyone who couldn’t be arsed to listen to a whole album.

The megamix — a medley of hits spliced together by an unrelenting dance beat — is hated more often than it’s loved.

I blame Jive Bunny, whose string of No 1s were about as welcome as a grown man in a rabbit outfit at your nan’s funeral. More of him later.

But a good megamix truly is a glorious treat.

If you’re in a megamix state of mind and all you want is the chorus, skip to the end for 10 of the best megamixes ever.

Everyone else, strap yourself in. This is going to be mega.

Stars On 45

In the late 70s, hit medleys by session singers became big sellers for the Ritchie Family in the US, Laurent Voulzy in France, Veronica Unlimited in Germany and Café Crème, whose Unlimited Citations was a hit right across Europe and North Africa.

Taking it one step further, producers started to make medleys of hits by the original artists, often the Beatles or disco acts like Lipps Inc, adding a dance beat to try to keep the mix consistent.

One of these bootlegs was licensed and released in early 1981 as Stars On 45 by Starsound — aka Dutch producer Jaap Eggermont, who megamixed an eclectic bunch of artists together including soundalike Beatles.

The insanely catchy Stars On 45 became a huge global hit, topping the US chart and reaching No 2 in the UK. It spawned a further three hits in the UK plus the first megamix album, imaginatively titled Stars On 45: Long Play Album. Girls Aloud paid homage to them in 2009, calling their own hits megamix Girls On 45.

If Stars On 45 kickstarted the megamix, Hooked On Classics picked it up and ran with it.

In the middle of 1981, arranger Louis Clark added a (you guessed it) dance beat to snatches of classical music played by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The Hooked On Classics single and album somehow became a hit around the world, leading to a further five volumes of classical disco horror.

Jive Bunny

It’s July 1989. Acid house is ruling the dancefloor and Soul II Soul are topping the UK chart.

Just when you thought it was safe to turn on the radio, along came Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers.

Run as far as you can. Then keep on running.

Once the novelty of Stars On 45 and Hooked On Classics had worn off, the megamix dropped out of the chart for most of the 80s.

But it didn’t die. The megamix never dies. It lived on underground, as DJ collectives such as DMC and Mastermix continued to make and supply professional megamixes to DJs across the country.

Working for Mastermix, Doncaster DJ Les Hemstock megamixed a bunch of retro hits together including Glenn Miller’s In the Mood, Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock and Wake Up, Little Susie by the Everly Brothers.

This evil brew was released commercially as Swing the Mood and somehow became the UK’s No 1 for five weeks. The megamix had entered its second summer of love.

Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers went on to rack up eight UK hit singles plus two hit albums. Swing the Mood would forever be played at weddings to keep the older guests “happy” — prompting the rest of us to hide in the bar as soon we heard: “Come on everybody c-c-come on everybody.”

Mega backlash

The success of Jive Bunny and other novelty megamixes such as the Jungle Book-themed Bare Necessities Megamix and the chronic Grease Megamix led to a fierce backlash.

“A megamix is often made by people who call themselves DJs but have no real skill or have never played in a club.”
JoeBillyBob, Urban Dictionary

A bad megamix will sellotape songs together with little regard for their style, cramming as many hits as possible into four frantic minutes. Tempo is often sacrificed to the megamix, with songs sped up or slowed down to fit its relentless beat. The results can be hysterical.

Some people will never welcome the megamix format, frustrated that their favourite songs are being chopped up and cut short. If you’re looking for subtlety or a soundtrack for your yoga class, don’t crack open a megamix.

They can also be a lazy fallback for club DJs — at Lisbon Bar in Liverpool recently the DJ slipped on the Five Megamix so he could go and buy chips.

Euro awesome

But in the right hands a megamix can be a glorious celebration of a popstar or band.

Take US singers Bobby Brown and Alexander O’Neal — they had a string of hits in the 80s but both started the next decade with no new album in sight.

So their record companies commissioned acclaimed Dutch DJ Rita Liebrand to create a megamix of their recent hits (O’Neal’s Hitmix and Brown’s Free Style Mega-Mix) keeping both artists in the chart while they worked on new material. No new songs? Just megamix the hits!

Eurodance acts Technotronic and Snap! followed their lead and the golden age of the megamix had begun.

As with most things, the Europeans perfected the art of the megamix. Ace of Base, Whigfield, Gala, Sash! and yes Corona showed us all how to do it. (I love Army of Lovers but theirs will burn your ears.)

“There isn’t a single bad megamix from a mid-90s Europop act.”
voodoogregor, Popjustice Forum

Megamixes were also a chance to re-edit and reuse promo videos, making them an ideal format to be screened in video bars. Hey when it comes to recycling, megamixes have always been woke.

Even when they stopped bothering the singles chart, megamixes found a natural home as the bonus track on a 12”, CD single or album. Bananarama, Steps, Erasure, Kim Wilde and Louise were among the UK acts to commission an official megamix, with *cough* mixed results.

Greatest hits

While Bobby Brown, Technotronic and Snap! used the megamix to remind us of their recent singles, Duran Duran went further back.

You can tell Kylie wasn’t so sure about this one

In 1989 they released Burning the Ground, a megamix of their greatest hits ahead of their first compilation album Decade. While Burning the Ground barely scraped into the singles chart, the megamix had proved to be a canny promotional tool.

Madonna, Britney Spears and the Spice Girls and have all since commissioned respected DJs to megamix their singles back into our consciousness before selling them to us all over again as greatest hits albums.

PWL pushed this to its limit by megamixing every song it had ever recorded with Kylie Minogue for the infamous album Kylie’s Non-Stop History 50+1. I challenge even the most resilient Kylie fan to make it to end of that one.

Mega future

The megamix is indestructible — it simply walks away from the car crash, dusts itself off, changes form and goes back underground.

In 2020 you’ll be hard pushed to find an official megamix in the download charts. Nevertheless DMC and Mastermix continue to megamix everyone from Dua Lipa to the Weeknd to Stormzy for DJs across the country. And the 10-min weekly Sounds of the 80s Mastermix produced by DJ Johnny Kalifornia for Radio Two is a labour of love and truly mega.

Last year Kylie faced her 50+1 demons to release another album length megamix to accompany her latest greatest hits collection Step Back in Time. Thankfully there was also a shorter edit.

And you can now find hundreds of thousands of bootleg megamixes online, made by fans at home. If you’re brave enough, take a deep breath and dive in — I’m sure some will be fun.

So come on everybody c-c-come on everybody: put the many many bad times behind you and give the megamix one more chance.