Rebooting Inner City’s “Good Life” is a bold swing — Kevin Saunderson’s 1988 original is untouchable Detroit gospel and most edits that dare to touch it end up sounding like karaoke. This one mostly gets away with the crime by keeping Paris Grey’s vocal front and centre and quietly rebuilding the engine underneath into something leaner and more modern. Charles D and TMPR resist the obvious battering-ram rework and instead let the groove swing a little, giving that immortal “good life” refrain room to soar the way it always deserved to. It won’t replace the original for anyone who was there the first time, and it clearly doesn’t want to; it plays more like a respectful handshake across the decades. The moment the vocal opens up over the new production, the hair on my arms stood up, which almost no dance record manages to do to me anymore. Some songs are simply too good to kill, and this proves it one more time. Old soul, brand new shoes.
Not the first time Charles D x TMPR x Inner City has shown up here — Inner City - Pennies From Heaven (DJ Paulette In For a Pennies Remix)