Paul Oakenfold

It is time to talk about the man that brought trance and house music in our lives and showed us what good music and good DJ-ing is all about. His majesty Paul Oakenfold...When it comes to a name like Paul Oakenfold it is quite hard to give to the readers the true magnitude of his career into just a few words. For over 3 decades he has elevated and shaped an entire genre and still remains one of the leading forces in the global music scene. Paul Oakenfold's musical career began in the late 1970s, when he started playing soul in a Covent Garden wine bar.

In 1987, Oakenfold travelled to the island of Ibiza for a week to celebrate his birthday, along with Trevor Fung, Nicky Holloway, Ian Saint Paul, Danny Rampling and Johnny Walker. Oakenfold convinced the owner of a venue in England, to host an "Ibiza Reunion" party after-hours. He had previously made an attempt, but it failed as the crowd was not prepared for the acid house style until 1987 when the party was successful. Since then, the night became a classic and became one of the UK's major acid house nights, known as "Spectrum at Heaven in Charing Cross". Spectrum became popular in The Sanctuary. As a bigger space was required, it turned into the Heaven club, which was run by Oakenfold and Paul. The party was best known for the "Theatre of Madness", as more than 1,500 people were present on Monday nights. Also in 1988 he decided to create a place where new artists could develop their careers. At that moment, Perfecto Records was born.

In 1992, when U2 released their song "Even Better Than the Real Thing", the Perfecto remix reached a higher charted position than the original song. In 1993 with the success of his last remix as Perfecto, he was hired by U2 to provide the warm-up sonics to their Zoo TV world tour, and replaced BP Fallon on the 1993 legs in Europe and Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, with more than fifty shows in Zooropa '93 and Zoomerang from 7 May to 10 December of the same year.

 He began producing his own tracks as well, continuing to remix songs from popular artists. He began using Goa music, something he discovered on the beaches of Goa in India, fusing it with similar sounding European tracks to create his own distinct sound. He took this to the mainstream in 1994 and created a pair of two-hour sets for BBC Radio 1's Essential Mix. In 1995, he became the first DJ to play on the main stage at the Glastonbury Festival for 90,000 people.

In 1997 Oakenfold created the first work for Global Underground, Paul Oakenfold, Live in Oslo. Oakenfold became Cream's resident DJ from 1997 - 1999. During this time, he began to concentrate on the release of Tranceport in 1998. In 1998 and 1999, Oakenfold took the first place in "DJmag's Top 100 DJs". In 1999, he left the UK and Europe and moved to the USA where he went on tour. In September 2000 he opened the new Digital Radio station Ministry of Sound Radio with a live mix from the famous London club. In 2007 he was nominated to 2 International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) at the Winter Music Conference (WMC), Best Underground Dance Track for "Faster Kill Pussycat" and Best Full Length DJ Mix CD for "A Lively Mind".

Astonishingly, despite all his success in the worlds of chart music and film, Oakenfold has found time to keep in touch with his roots as a club DJ. Over the past 3 years he has held a weekly residency at the legendary Rain nightclub in The Palms, Las Vegas. Planet Perfecto is a fully produced show with 75 circus performers, cutting edge visuals and special effects - giving the 3,000-strong crowd a truly unique experience. I bet all of you that have never been in such a party, will go crazy on the following video....