Essential Oakenfold, 36 mixes in 25 years

November 4, 2018 7:25 AM

Paul Oakenfold recently produced a retrospective Essential Mix, digging from the Perfecto archives back to his first essential mix from 1993 for Essential Mix's 25th anniversary. Perhaps more notably, it's his 36th mix for the program, where he was the first guest DJ, following Pete Tong's debut hosting, and mixing, on October 30, 1993. If you want to relive the past with days of Oakenfold's mixes, you're in luck! They're (almost) all online!

Here's a playlist of mixes on Soundcloud, but it may not be complete, or Soundcloud might have a problem with displaying play times for really long playlists. The dates are links to Mixes DB, and the other links are to mixes where they aren't already embedded in the Mixes DB pages.

1. November 6, 1993
2. March 19, 1994
3. December 12, 1994 (The Goa Mix) + Director's Commentary (previously)
4. May 28, 1995 (Paul Oakenfold, Pete Tong, and Sasha at Que Club)
5. September 17, 1995 (Paul Oakenfold @ Perfecto, Ku Club, Ibiza)
6. November 4, 1995 (Paul Oakenfold, Pete Tong, and Sasha at Que Club)
7. October 13, 1996
8. May 25, 1997 (Sneaker Pimps, Justin Robertson, DJ Sneak, Kraftwerk, Pete Tong, Paul Oakenfold and Way Out West at Tribal Gathering, Luton, UK)
9. July 6, 1997 (Boy George, Pete Tong and Paul Oakenfold @ Hong Kong Hand Over)
10. October 19, 1997
11. November 30, 1997 (Nick Warren and Paul Oakenfold @ Cream, Liverpool)
12. May 2, 1998 (Pete Tong, Sasha and Paul Oakenfold @ Creamfields)
13. October 11, 1998 (Pete Tong and Paul Oakenfold @ 6 Years Cream, Liverpool)
14. January 17, 1999 (Paul Oakenfold @ Home, Sydney)
15. February 21, 1999 (Paul Oakenfold @ Joni's, Havana, Cuba)
16. March 28, 1999 (Paul Oakenfold @ Shadow Lounge, Miami, Winter Music Conference [WMC])
17. April, 25, 1999 (Paul Oakenfold @ Museum, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
18. May 30, 1999 (Sasha, Pete Tong and Paul Oakenfold @ Homelands)
19. June 20, 1999 (Pete Tong, Paul Oakenfold and Judge Jules @ Gatecrasher)
20. July 25, 1999 (Paul Oakenfold @ Home, Space, Ibiza)
21. August 29, 1999 (Pete Tong, Seb Fontaine and Paul Oakenfold @ Creamfields)
22. September 26, 1999 (Paul Oakenfold @ Rojam, Shanghai)
23. October 31, 1999 (Paul Oakenfold @ Home, London)
24. November 28, 1999 (Paul Oakenfold @ The University, Liverpool)
25. December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000 (The Essential Millennium world-wide mega-show, including Paul Oakenfold @ Home, London, UK, 2000-01-01 -- no audio for this one)
26. February 13, 2000
27. May 21, 2000
28. August 27, 2000 (Pete Tong, Paul Oakenfold and Seb Fontaine @ Creamfields)
29. December 31, 2000 to January 1, 2001 (New Years Eve in UK, including Paul Oakenfold, Godskitchen @ Code, Birmingham, UK Broadcast)
30. October 28, 2001 (Fergie and Paul Oakenfold @ One Live, Birmingham)
31. August 25, 2002 (Underworld [live], Hernan Cattaneo and Paul Oakenfold live @ Creamfields)
32. August 10, 2003 (Paul Oakenfold, Tiësto, Judge Jules, Fergie and Eddie Halliwell @ Club Eden & Amnesia, Ibiza)
33. August 8, 2004 (Nic Fanciulli, Seb Fontaine, Paul Oakenfold and Eddie Halliwell @ Cream, Amnesia, Ibiza)
34. April 30, 2006
35. August 13, 2006 (Fergie, Steve Lawler, Paul Oakenfold, Steve Angello and Mauro Picotto @ Ibiza
36. October 27, 2018 (Essential Mix @ 25)

posted by filthy light thief (14 comments total)

And if you're thinking "ye gods, man, that's enough Oakey, what about someone else?" then here's a search on BBC for "Essential Mix at 25," which turns up mini-mixes (each running less than 30 minutes) from Skream, Derrick Carter, Patrick Topping, Nicole Moudaber, Erol Alkan and more on the (possibly region-locked) iPlayer.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:29 AM on November 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

UH MAH GAWD THANK U
posted by nikaspark at 8:03 AM on November 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Thanks Napster for:

July 25, 1999 (Paul Oakenfold @ Home, Space, Ibiza)

I think I had one other one, thanks YOU for the FPP!
posted by symbioid at 8:34 AM on November 4, 2018

Never did I feel more relevant then back in the day owning Digweed & Sasha mixes.
posted by Brocktoon at 8:42 AM on November 4, 2018 [13 favorites]

I can never get into the radio-y quality of the Essential Mixes. Their self-advertising PA stuff always pulls me out of the music. I much prefer Cercle's recordings of their live shows, like this one by Carl Cox.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:34 AM on November 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Sasha & Digweed was mah jam back in the day. But yeah I played the shit out of my old Perfecto Radio presents: CDs well into the 2010s.

man, 25 years. Thanks for this filthy light thief !!
posted by some loser at 10:08 AM on November 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I can never get into the radio-y quality of the Essential Mixes.

The many of the mixes are posted by Oakenfold himself, and the older ones are pre-radio (without the voiceovers and station idents).
posted by filthy light thief at 10:31 AM on November 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I can never get into the radio-y quality of the Essential Mixes. Their self-advertising PA stuff always pulls me out of the music.

One of the previous posts on Essential Mix had a link for a site that re-mixes them to just the music.
posted by Runes at 10:47 AM on November 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

25 years! Jeepers!
posted by praemunire at 6:00 PM on November 4, 2018

The second hour of Home, Space, Ibiza... I'm back in my dorm room thinking I was gonna be the next Red Hat.

Just, thank you, for this trip.
posted by curoi at 8:21 PM on November 4, 2018

My humble two penny about Oakenfold is when people were convinced to come to an Israeli party which was highlighted by an Oakenfold thin sunglasses-wear poser who played his essential mix CD against the live audience. "The impostor also had the courage to scream a typical 'Hello Israel' through the microphone"

The audience realized the con in a few minutes and began to protest, so the organizers tried to appease them with free drinks. The big point is: this was very late at that night, while the organizers declared repeatidly (for nearly 3 hours) the mantra "Paul Oakenfold will arrive in 10 minutes". (news source in hebrew, 5/2001)

By the way, Oakenfold were notoriously in 1997 Perfecto Fluoro presentation party, and was blown away by an anonymous white-label demo he got from an unknown fan - so he played it live twice that evening, and later made it one of his greatest Perfecto goa classics, Mystica - Ever Rest. And this is a Grace rare interview during this visit.
posted by avi111 at 11:55 PM on November 4, 2018

Note that this 1997 party was compiled into a very nice memorabillia
posted by avi111 at 12:12 AM on November 5, 2018

This is great - thank you! On a related note, when / if you've run out of stuff to listen to Digweed puts out a weekly mix on Mixcloud called Transitions often featuring guest DJs. It's excellent.
posted by jontyjago at 1:38 AM on November 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oakland's Goa mix (1994) still gives me goosebumps during the transition from the first track to Grace - Skin On Skin (Orange Mix).
posted by spacediver at 7:05 PM on November 5, 2018