Sezen Aksu remixes

While preparing an overview of Sezen Aksu's thirty-three year long career, I have come across some rather interesting remixes that both attest to her versatility as a composer, and the creativity of the people she works with. While most of these songs have a very strong folk flavour in their original form, they easily become rousing dance anthems when stripped of their percussive ornaments, soaring trumpets and melancholic oud solos. At the heart of the melody, Sezen's genius for fusing traditional and modern, the old with the new, becomes more apparent than ever.

As I've said in my previous post about her, Sezen has always been extremely careful at the moment of crafting songs, giving equal importance to both tradition and modernity, in fusion the old with the new. Her early to late nineties work is particularly interesting, as she travelled across the world several times with each new album! Thus, in amassing this impressive body of work (not to mention, the exceptional task that must have been the research to find each different folk genre), Sezen made Turkish pop one of the most sophisticated movements of the late 20th Century.

The first song I'm presenting you with was my favourite of Sezen's for many years, and is also become my user name! Rakkas is a trumpet, oboe, flutes, tambourines and cymbals whirlwind that enters your body through your ears, and doesn't stop shaking it until the very end of the song, which has one of the coolest instrumental breaks I've ever heard. Not happy with the spectacular original, Sezen comissioned three remixes - two appeared in her 1996 album Düş Bahçeleri/Gardens Of Dream. The first one is a disco-fied techno track that respects the folk roots of the song while giving a club friendly make over to it. The second remix is far more aggressive, combining thumping pre-programmed beats with ever changing tempos and cadences. The final and most recent remix is a mainly instrumental house track that distorts the song's original vocals and instrumentation to suit the frenzied rhythm.

Rakkas/Dancer

Rakkas (Düş Bahçeleri remix 1)

Rakkas (Düş Bahçeleri remix 2)

Rakkas (DJ Onur vs Mezdeke)



The second song and remix are far more recent, from the album Deliveren/Crazy Maker (2000). The original song version of Kahpe Kader starts as a sorroful ballad, only to rapidly morph into a fast, cheerful acoustic folk/rock number that creates a strong contrast with the song's very sad lyrics. The remix is AWESOME! Dressed in grieving chants, distorted vocals and an ever changing spiral of electronic effects set to an earth-shattering dance beat, it simply turns the song into a club jewel!

Kahpe Kader/Perfidious Fate

Kahpe Kader (Dance remix)

Next comes the very special remix of one of the most beautiful and comtemplative tracks fromt he album that made me discover Sezen - 2002's Şarkı Söylemek Lazım/The Songs Must be Sung. Dansöz Dünya is, in its original form, a very slow oud-driven ballad with a few fast spots, something that this remix respects. The beginning is relaxed, with Sezen almost speaking the lyrics. Then, all of a sudden, warbling sounds emerge from nowhere, and a dance beat that becomes increasingly aggressive kicks in. Great song!

Dansöz Dünya/Dancing World (Dance Mix)

Finally, I'd like to offer you a few songs from Sezen's latest proper studio album, 2005's Bahane/Excuse. The first remix is relatively faithful to the original song Şanıma İnanma, but instead of a vertiginously fast Summery pop song, it becomes an R&B-tinged tracks that keeps constantly changing - every single part of the song is different from the rest, yet it all merges into a cohesive unit. Quite special. The three remixes that follow are from the bossa nova and jazz fusion İkili Delilik, a huge hit in late 2005. I personally don't like the original that much, but I do love these remixes. The first one is just a myriad of electronic effects plastered over the song, but the second is far more effective, mainly because it actually merges with the melody.

Şanıma İnanma/Faith In My Own Glory (Kıvanç K Mix)

İkili Delilik/Double Madness (Dance remix)

İkili Delilik (DJ SeO vs Sezen Aksu - Club Mix)

As always, i have to remind you to buy Sezen's albums. Tulumba is a great choice, as is Amazon.

The joyous rose of Turkey - Gülşen

Gülşen is Turkey's most desired, and widely despised singer. The scourge of feminists and religious fundamentalists (who would have thought that it was possible for these two groups to ever agree over something?), Gülşen works hard to convince her fellow citizens that contributing to reduce women to the status of mere sexual objects is a noble pursuit, especially if you do so clad in a transparent bikini and a little cheap jewellery (you have to include it – diamanté is a necessity if you want to avoid catching colds! ;-P). However, things were not always like this. Once a chaste, pious and contrite serious musician, Gülşen proudly declared her love for all things traditional and artsy. Not surprisingly at all, she did so because she coursed her baccalaureate studies in the prestigious Şehremini Lisesi, widely considered one of the best educational centers in Turkey, and is a graduate in Musicology from the renowned Music School of Istanbul’s Technical University. She also happens to be an excellent guitar player and a fantastic composer – the poor thing probably wanted to be admired for her work and not for her body. Aaaaawwww, poor misguided soul in desperate need of stilettos, silicon implants and a fake tan! :-P Still, she managed to achieve notoriety on the strength of her deep, rich contralto voice and some unbelievably beautiful compositions, for which she was seen as a possible candidate to, one very distant day, occupy Sezen Aksu's lofty throne right on the very top of the Turkish pop music heaven.

However, people soon tired of Gülşen's artful dalliances, and her awesome third album Şimdi/Now (2002) failed miserably in the charts in spite of being one of the best works of art by any Turkish musician in that year. After having to cancel concerts and presentations due to an overall lack of interest, I guess that she spent a few days in deep mediation and came up with this brilliant answer to the existential question: what do you do when you’re talented, unfairly ignored and still young enough? Easy. You stop wearing clothes in public! So, after a little water, lettuce and apples dieting, some torrid sessions on a tanning bed and a bit of liposuction here and there to accelerate the process, our once prodigal daughter Gülşen came out of the detox clinic as the very flower of whore-dom! ;-P And I love her even more for it, because her music hasn’t lost any of its quality and now she’s a whole lot more entertaining to watch! In addition, I must admit that I can’t get enough of the "I know I'm too hot for you to do so, but if you take me seriously I might shag you later" paradoxal shadow that falls over everything that she’s done as of late. It gives her desperation a touch of complexity that’s missing from all the other clothes-averse pop tarts in Turkey :-P. Or the world, for that matter.



Now, seriously, I have to say that it is indeed sad that a talented musician like her should be forced to pander to the lowest common denominator in order to save her career, but what the heck! She’s selling millions now. Anyway, there’s not much more to say about her, since her life seems to have been devoid of any significant dramatic experiences, and she seems to be one of the few young Turkish musicians whose careers haven’t been built by Sezen Aksu.

Thus, without further ado, I present you with the selection I’ve made; I really hope you’ll enjoy it! But as always, I’d like to remind you to go to buy her albums here.

Yurtta Aşk, Cihanda Aşk/Love In the World, Love In the Land (Dance Version)

The original version of this, the title track from her latest album (2005), is a rather good disco song that’s strongly influenced by Middle Eastern folk. Still, I’ve chosen this remix version of it because it has acoustic flamenco ornamentation, some heavy electric guitars and a far more aggressive beat – it’s more international, in short. The title of the song is inspired by a famous phrase from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk; the father of modern, secular, rabidly pro-Western Turkey – ‘yurtta barış, cihanda barış’ (peace in the world, peace in the land). As pretentious as this shameless paraphrasing of a great man who changed the course of Turkish history is, I must admit that the song is AWESOME, and the lyrics quite good. So much so, that it was one of the biggest hits in 2005 in Turkey, spending seven weeks at number one in the charts! But the album has so much more! In it, Gülşen has included reggaeton, R&B, folk numbers and even house music! God, how I love her! Video.

Sarışınım/My Blond One

This cover of a 1988 Sezen Aksu mega-hit is FABULOUS!!! Whereas the original is marred by what could be best described as bizarre synthesizer effects disastrously clashing against each other, this is given the full folk/pop treatment that it ought to have had in the first place, and the results are just… AAAAAAAHHHHHH! Let’s just say that I love this so much, that Gülşen could very well start releasing actual shit from now on, and I’d still happily buy it. She’s bought my eternal loyalty with this! It begins with heavy percussion that keeps running all the way to the end of the song, and is frequently paired by a thick, heavy bass line that will have you bopping around in no time!!! But the wind section of the song is what really makes it so awesome. It was also a huge number one hit in 2004, especially after the video, in which Gülşen appears dancing in a transparent bikini that barely covers her ‘charms’ with false diamonds (her jewels ;-P actually had to be digitalized before the video was broadcast), was banned from Turkish television for being considered pornographic! Here it is!

Sakıncalı/Objectionable (Acoustic Version)

This beautiful acoustic song is an example of what Gülşen is capable of, both as a composer and producer. Opened by melancholic piano instrumentation, this wonderful folk-inspired ballad combines very slow, delicate verses that come alive with violins and oud arpeggios, and fast choruses that keep their urgency thanks to a heavy bass line and some rapid percussion, which keeps appearing and disappearing as the melody lazily unfolds. It’s simply gorgeous. Video.

Of… Of…

The title track for her 2004 rising from the ashes, this song doesn’t really mark a sharp departure from everything that Gülşen had done before, but it is nonetheless still different enough as to have been a surprise for most of her fans. I’m not sure about the meaning of the title, because it has nothing to do with the lyrics (it’s a typical ‘I left you, you found someone new and now that I want you back, you’re taking revenge by playing with my feelings’ sort of song), but it’s very catchy and fun, so I don’t really mind! I LOVE the combination of a fast trance beat with traditional çiftetelli instrumentation. It’s gorgeous! Video.

The Turkish queen of darkness - Şebnem Ferah

Şebnem Ferah is, in theory, Turkey's official Goth queen. However, as it always happens in that wonderful place that is South Eastern Europe, things aren't so straight and easy with her. Even though it's true that Şebnem does cultivate a somewhat Goth-ified image and occasionally delves into the realm of hard rock (in fact, she first started her career as the lead singer of a moderately successful hard rock band, Volvox), she is primarily the most prominent female vocalist of an eminently Turkish cultural phenomenon called Anatolian rock. Anatolian rock first emerged in the mid-sixties as an adaptation to Turkish tastes of American and U.K. imported rock music. However, it soon gained prominence, and by the early seventies it was an already well-established genre, fronted by legendary singer/songwriter Barış Manço, viewed by many as the father of the movement. From there, Anatolian rock has gone to develop further, adding elements of traditional Turkic, Armenian and Balkan music, and occasionally borrowing from Western Classical music and Arabic folk.

That’s where La Ferah appears. The daughter of Macedonian immigrants of very distant Turkish descent, Şebnem had a very happy childhood, surrounded by middle-class comforts and the ever-present sound of Rumelian and Slavic folk. Her parents, mathematics and physics teachers at a secondary school, were also professional musicians, and she received her first music lessons from them. Eventually becoming a very proficient guitar player, Şebnem wanted to be a professional musician, but her parents would have none of it. She was told that only a proper career would do, and was sent to the prestigious, American educational model-based Bursa Namık Sözeri High School, in Istanbul. While staying there as a boarder, she decided to form her first band with a group if six friends, Pegasus.

After its first summer festival, Pegasus lost two members and disbanded, but after a couple of months the five remaining friends decided to give it a try once again, and in 1988 the sixteen-year-olds formed Volvox. However, Volvox couldn’t play frequently due to the fact that it had to be a hobby – no one’s parents would accept it as anything else. Things changed, however, in 1991, when Ferah, then an economics student in Ankara’s Middle Eastern Technical University, met fellow student Özlem Tekin. Both girls became good friends, and after joining Volvox, Turkish-American Özlem gave her fellow band mates the courage to drop out of university and start playing full time. She would also exert a strong influence by exposing them to American indie rock (ugh! :-( ).



Sadly, Volvox were not as successful as they might have deserved. After three years of playing in bars, where they had a very loyal following, they decided to disband. However, fortune was smiling at them. One of their records was picked by Turkish State Television as part of the soundtrack for a series of documentaries on Turkish music, and Şebnem caught the ear of (will you guess it? ;-))… Sezen Aksu and her then lover, equally legendary Armenian songwriter and pianist Onno Tunçboyacıyan.

She became, like Sertab, Tarkan and many others before and after her, a tea-sandwiches-cum-background-singer and telephone dialer (apparently, Sezen hates it when she has to dial phone numbers herself – ah, the horrors that divas must endure for the sake of their art! ;-P), and the rest is, as they say, history! If you’ve liked what you’ve read and will hear, go to buy Şebnem’s albums at Tulumba.

Bu Aşk Fazla Sana/This Love’s Worthless To You

Şebnem’s first single as a soloist, from her début album Kadın/Woman (1996). A somewhat conventional acoustic ballad, the only highlight of which is the soaring, even majestic chorus. It will no doubt sound very ordinary to Western ears, which is the reason why it became an enormous hit in Turkey – its direct approach and instrumental simplicity (for Turkish standards), made it extremely exotic in a country in which even the lowest forms of disposable pop, are forced to carry the weight of an extremely rich musical legacy on their shoulders. Simply put, this song didn’t attempt to be an exercise of applied musical scholasticism; it’s just unaffected and simple - and that’s what made it stand out. Video.

Fırtına/Storm

This is a blend of house and rock with very light touches of folk (I would even dare to say that you’ll have difficulties to identify them). This song would make those sickeningly pretentious, ‘asocial-teens-market-research-says-you-like-this-crap’ wankers Evanescence, turn green with envy (which would be a welcome change from their overuse of Norma Shearer’s Silver Stone #1 white make up anyway). This is a dark, aggressive track that truly honours its title: having passed the first moments of tense calm, everything explodes into a furious hurricane of deafening roars and raging winds. This song marvelously juxtaposes the debacle of a failed relationship to the violence of a storm. Beautiful. Video.

Sigara/Cigarette

This is one of the biggest hits from the 2001 album Perdeler/Curtains. It shows a very strong Middle Eastern influence, but everything is done so carefully and with such subtlety, that it passes through your ears as a light mist. It is one of Ferah’s few full incursions into proper Anatolian rock, and it is truly delightful. With a lovely, sinuous melody that slowly and delicately drags its way across the aggressive background, it has many beautiful highlights, but the gorgeous flute that accompanies Şebnem’s voice during the chorus is simply magical. Video.

Hoşçakal/Noble Jackal

This is my favourite song from Şebnem's powerful new album Can Kırıkları/A Soul’s Pieces (2005). Even though the name of the song is a bit bizarre (God knows what was running through her mind when she wrote it), this is in fact an extremely beautiful and moving ballad that will carry you across distant plains and rocky hills in a moonless night, trying to make a living out of scraps that someone forgot, or no one else would want (yes, that’s what the song’s about!). The entirely human sense of desperation and the brutality of nature blend into one and are expressed beautifully by Şebnem , who shows the exceptionally sensitive songwriter she is with this piece.

The Turkish Empress of music - Sezen Aksu

Sezen Aksu is not only the Queen of Turkish pop. To be more accurate, I ought to call her the mother of Turkish pop music. But she is not an ordinary mother, and she's had a child not just like any other: Sezen is unique both as an individual and a musician - simply put, there's no one else like her, and that's reflected in her music. Born to a couple of schoolteachers in 1954, Sezen was educated to be independent and strong from a very early age. As a teenager, she studied to become an agricultural engineer in Izmir, but left her career because she couldn't resist the call of music. Her first attempts at breaking the market were unsuccessful, but in 1977 she finally managed to achieve success. However, she didn't just become successful - she became a megastar overnight, and was given her Diva Nickname from the beginning: Minik Serçe (Little Sparrow - also one of her most beautiful songs). Since then, Sezen has been going from strength to strength, and is adored by almost everyone in Turkey - her concerts are always sold out, and her records sell by the truckload.

However, Sezen is as notorious for her music as she is for her social activism. In her songs she talks about ecological issues, the repression against the Armenian and Kurd minorities (in fact, in 1999 groups of nationalist Turks made her the object of scathing attacks in the media because she sang Kurdish and Armenian folk songs during a televised concert) and the terrible discrimination that many women still suffer in many parts of rural Turkey - all subjects that the authorities would rather keep hidden. Not only is this woman a WONDROUS artist, but she's also got a set of balls bigger than most men.



Her music is so unique because every single one of her compositions is a treasure in itself: a wonderful work of art that draws from both Turkish and Western classical music, plus the folk traditions of all the people from China to Spain, passing through Arabia, the Black, Aegean and Western Mediterranean seas, Russia and Central Europe... But all brought to contemporary times by blending it with rock, pop, techno, trance or even a very unique form of hip hop. And this is what's so special about Sezen's albums - it's like travelling in time and across half of the world, only without moving and being able to feel every single thing as present and modern, even familiar. And all this accompanied by Sezen's rich, silvery contralto and unbridled passion. What could be better?! If you want to purchase her records, go here.



It's been really difficult for me to make a selection of Sezen's music, especially because she has changed so much during her thirty years of career (yeah, she’s gone from a gorgeous young thing to a Pete Burns look-a-like… Sorry, but the catty bitch in me had to say it! :-D ). She started as a torch ballad singer, delved into Middle Eastern-influenced soft rock, then went through an era of synthesizer-crazy pop during the eighties, went back to purely traditional and classical music during the early nineties, and has steadily come closer and closer to dance music with her latest releases - but always remaining faithful to her classical and folk roots. Now, isn’t that FABULOUS? Enjoy!

Kalp Unutmaz/The Heart Doesn't Forget

This is one of my favourite songs by Sezen, from her awesome 2005 album Bahane (Excuse). It's a MONUMENTAL disco throw down kinda song, with a gorgeous violin introduction, a fast and insistent beat and a thunderous chorus that will have you shaking your body all over the place in no time! It's also very carefully made, with enormous attention being given to little details that embellish the song enormously and take it to the level of a true epic.

Deli Gönlüm/I'm Crazy Once Again

This is yet another one of Sezen's journeys into disco territory. However, this isn't as original as Kalp Unutmaz in the sense that it is more traditional Western disco music than anything else. Or maybe I'm being inexact: the melody has all the elements of a Turkish folk song, but it is cleverly twisted around to suit the 4/4 beat and the carefully disguised electronic effects. Beautiful.



Kapılıyız/Closed (Kıvanç K Mix)

This is Sezen in rapper mode! But honestly, this is not silly in any way: not at all! In fact, it’s one of her most intriguing songs. It has a very futuristic production that, for some reason, brings to mind a snowstorm… In spite of my crazy ramblings, this is a very cool track: both because it’s great, and because it evokes a cold, distant atmosphere. It’s amazingly good, though, and even though I personally detest hip hop, it does manage to elevate the genre above the rubbish that it is most of the time to create a sublime work of art. Oh, it's taken from the SPECTACULAR single Kardelen (Snowdrop), 2006. :-)

Su Gibi/Like Water

This achingly beautiful and delicate ballad comes (like Deli Gönlüm), from the album that made Sezen the darling of World Music fanatics, Şarkı Söylemek Lazim/The Songs Must Be Sung, from 2002. It begins with a faint electronic piano solo that mimics the sounds of dripping water, and gracefully flows into a melancholic, reposed ballad that suddenly rises into a melodramatic chorus highlighted by violins and a military-styled drum arch. It's gorgeous, and it honours its name.

The Monarch-in-waiting of Turkish pop - Tarkan

Tarkan is Turkey’s reigning king of mainstream pop music, and the object of equally extreme adoration and despise by legions of people. Almost everyone has an opinion both on him as an individual and his music, which has kept him firmly set in the near center of Turkey’s mediatic spotlight and made his records multimillion sellers in its enormous music market. However, only one person manages to cast a faint shadow over Tarkan’s superstardom, and it is curiously the same individual responsible for both his and Sertab Erener’s careers, among others: Sezen Aksu, the Mother of Turkish pop. Which is not to say that Tarkan has been kept from attaining any glories, of course.

Savvily marketed as a somewhat sexually ambiguous teenage heartthrob, his meteoric rise to stardom has been a perpetual act of defiance to the more traditionalist and backwards sectors of Turkish society, which have made such exaggerate displays of outrage at his every action as to appear comical in their conservatism; from publicly denouncing his belly-waving, hip-shaking dance routines to taking offence at the silliest of gaffes, they’ve steadily provided Tarkan with the publicity he needed to become the herald of modern, young Turkish culture.

Named after a comic superhero, Tarkan was born in Germany and didn’t return to Turkey until the age of 13 – his passion had always been music, which he had actively studied since childhood. After failing his entrance exams at the University of Istanbul and being reduced to scrap a living in low end jobs, he decided to move back to Germany, only to be rapidly signed to a then mid-sized recording company, Istanbul Plak. He became instantly successful, with his début selling 750,000 copies in cassette format, and then hitting the two million mark when it was released as a CD a year later, in 1993. From there, Tarkan went on to enjoy ever increasing success both in Turkey and Europe (especially France, Garmany and Russia), especially with the international hit Şımarik/Spoilt (written by Aksu), which became enormously successful all over the world.



However successful he might have been, Tarkan has encountered a fair share of controversy throughout his career, from being criticized for saying ‘I’ve got to pee’ on live television (such pervert! ;-) ) and facing being tried for desertion and stripped of his citizenship for not attending his military service (he’s completed it already), to being photographed in a ‘compromising’ position with another man by the paparazzi. Still, these things have only served to increase his popularity, and the widespread answer to the ‘scandals’ that have plagued his career has been a resounding ‘so what?’

Thus, being most successful male singer in Turkey, Tarkan decided to break beyond its borders last year by releasing the utterly crap Come Closer, which is nowhere near his previous material. For this reason, I have only included material he sang before 2006, which is of an infinitely superior quality than what he’s done (or better said, been forced to do) as of late. If you want to buy his records, go here.

Şıkıdım (Hepsi Senin Mi?)/Shake (Who Do You Think You Are?)

This is one of Tarkan's catchiest and most interesting songs. Even though it just appears to be an ordinary bouncy pop song with acoustic guitars, the rise and the chorus have a distinctly traditional structure, and all the elements in it gracefully combine to make this a cheerful, almost exhilarating experience. Needless to say,t his has been on of his greatest hits ever, and one of its lyrics gave name to his 1994 album A-Acayipsin/Oh, You're Something Else. Video.

Dudu/Woman

This simply gorgeous song was yet another massive hit in Turkey, and also in Greece by means of Modern Laika star Peggy Zina (of course, I shall post about her very soon). Still, I prefer Tarkan's version, which is more poetic and gives greater importance to the way in which every single instrumental layer fuses into the whole. It is lovely and the title track for the massively successful 2003 EP of the same name. Video.

Kuzu Kuzu/Like A Lamb

This is by far the greatest hit of Tarkan's last porper Turkish language album Karma, from 2001. It is very different to the rest of the material in it, which has a very Euro-pop feel to it, albeit it is darker (and far better produced) than most music in that 'genre'. It begins like an ordinary contemporary R&B/pop song, only to evolve into what appears to be a tearful ballad... With a fast, insistent beat and a fast chorus from which you won't be able to escape! Video.

Uzak/Far Away

This track is also from the Karma album, and is more characteristic of the rest of tha material in it - none of the instrumentation is acoustic, and resorts to echoing harmonies and an abundance of electronic effects to build a somewhat ominous atmosphere, even if the lyrics are quite harmless. Still, it deserves a try, as it is quite danceable and has a superb break - I hope you love it! :-)

The Turkish princess - Sertab Erener