Artist: U2
Title: With Or Without You (Sultan & Miche Mix)
Label: RR1000
By: Simon Jones | 21 August 2003
Tracklist:

• A: With Or Without You (Sultan & Miche Mix)

U2 "With Or Without You (Sultan & Miche Mix)"

U2 are without a doubt one of the biggest and richest bands in the world. There have been few who have rivaled Bono as spearhead of a generation, or as a front man, spokesperson or icon. Indeed, they are a band's band. The Joshua Tree is perhaps one of of the first defining moments in their career, spawning such tracks as 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For', 'Where The Streets Have No Name', and the hugely successful and popular 'With Or Without You'. Canadian producer and dj Sultan is obviously fan, as both he and fellow dj Miche created their own special homage to the track which regulars at gigs became instantly familiar with, and now it's available as a limited one sided white label for everyone to have a chance to own.

Built around a deep and moody house groove, the focus played is placed on percussive layers and drums, before elements of the original begin to creep through, leading into a short vocal solo, and onward into a tough drum led section which runs until the end. Not the most earth shatteringly constructed track, but done in such a way it will work on the dancefloor, but relies heavily on the obvious samples of the original.

There have been far better and innovative remixes than this, with U2 always the focus of many new and established producers. One may question how this could have turned out had it been constructed more in the vein of the original song with more emphasis on the vocal. But I guess we shall never know, as this dubbed out interpretation remains destined to be a novelty track with short term appeal and is quite frankly sacrilegious to one of the classics of the 80s.