In it's original incarnation as a Bryan Adams single from 1984, 'Heaven' holds me in a certain nostalgic sway by virtue of it (and its parent 'Reckless' album) being an almost permanent fixture on the uncool kids tape machine thingy in our sixth form common room to the extent that hearing a few chords of any of it now is enough to start me filling up. Well not quite, and I'm not going to let any in-built sentimentality cloud my judgement either - I didn't care for Adams and his sawn off Springsteen shtick then and I don't care for it now either, and 'Heaven' itself irritated the pedant in me both 'then' and 'now' with its "When you're lying here in my arms I'm finding it hard to believe we're in heaven" pay off making no sense in context at all without a strategic comma (after the "believe") that Adams' delivery never slots in place.Dutch singer Do doesn't add it either, but at least her measured vocal sandpapers Adams' own roughhouse delivery into something easier on the ear. What's less easy on the ear is the harsh and banging nineties Eurodance beat that DJ Sammy sets it to. And that, in a nutshell, is what this is - Bryan Adams' 'Heaven' set to a harsh and banging nineties Eurodance beat that sacrifices subtlety on the altar of stomp and exuberance; 'Heaven' blares like angry horn blasts blaring from a traffic jam stalled in summer heat, its relentless parp drowning out any would be tenderness from the lyric in much the same way as Adams' own bombastic seventies soft rock baggage did back in the day. In truth, both give me a headache, but DJ Sammy's lacks the veneer of nostalgia to make it part ways palatable and along with the headache, his take makes my teeth grind too, mostly through its sheer lack of originality - if I'd been asked to quickly knock up a dance version of 'Heaven' then my attempt would have sounded not dissimilar. Better even, and I guess that something's out of joint when the 'artist' shows less imagination in his art than his own indifferent audience.
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