Hang On Remixes (promotional maxi-CD single/retail downloads)
Artist: Plumb
Label: Curb

If you've read me go on about Plumb in this publication in the past, you have my apologies in advance if I seem redundant. BUT...
  
How strange is it that our gal Tiffany Arbuckle Lee would become a general market discotheque darling? Back when Plumb was her band's name and not her own stage name, she was probably recording more consciously dance-oriented music than she has as a solo act. At least in her songs' original versions aren't usually all that dancey. YET...

With her own acquiescence, her label's muscle and a bevy of remixers/post-producers, she has become something of a mini-powerhouse of radio mix show and club play. With songs about a dangerous self-abuse disorder ("Cut") and mother/child love ("In My Arms") yet. Go figure! AND...

She recently hit the pole position of Billboard's club play chart with remixes of "Hang On," a bonus track on her recent best-of album. Lyrics that hint at stubbornness and darkness might be reflective of a personal struggle in La Plumb's own life, but its prevailing theme of hope makes it her most lyrically universal and overtly pre-evangelistic club banger to date. Of course, it's the people who re-tweaked it who made it club bangable from its original downtempo iteration.

More often than not, the reinterpretations fit the lyrics, too. The extended mix, radio edit and dub by London's Digital Dog duo present Plumb in a cleanly poppy electro-disco light with tribal percussion touches. They're furthermore distinguished by the only use of echoed background vocals ("hang on, hang on!...") and an even more reverb-enhanced vocal breakdown. DD's radio edit, I believe this is the version getting Christianity radio radio play nearest me...where the original with fewer beats-per-minute isn't, that is. 

Dave Aude's extended, radio and dub refashionings complement the lyrics and Plumb's sometimes breathy delivery of them with techno/house accompaniment that suits the song's feeling of desperation and assurance. HOWEVER (yes. we're back to that!)... Nashvillians Bronleeewe & Bose take the song in a decidedly ill-fitting direction by mimicking the track to Dead or Alive's libidinous 1985 hi-NRG classic "You Spin Me Around (Like A Record)." As white drag queen club/pop singers go, DOA's Pete Burns is up there with Boy George and Pepper Mashay, but come on. Plumb has a far less flamboyant (and gender-appropriately heterosexual) charisma. The resemblance to such a renowned-and horny-oldie might make this a floor-filler for some DJs, but as a lyrical/musical fit,  it's a no-go by my ears. And stutter vocal edits? You didn't have to take us _that_ far back to '85, did you, B&B? 

Pete Hammond summons a spirit of homosexual clubgoing past, too, but not distractingly as B&B. Hammond casts "Hang On" in the proto-trance synth warmth of Bronski Beat, the overtly gay mid-'80s English trio who were almost U.S. pop hit-makers for a hot minute, too. The gauzy minor key warmth of BB hits such as "Small Town Boy" makes a fine match for Plumb's yearning couplets without being too redolent of the aspects of the band Hammond references that would make her Christian listeners uncomfortable. Hammond, alas, is the only remixer here not afforded a dub version.

No offense to Plumb, but she doesn't exude the bigger-than-life persona her club diva competitors such as Kristine W. and Barbara Tucker, much less clubber chicks who have managed big pop hits, like Madonna and Lady GaGa. That apparent dichotomy, along with the personal nature of her lyrics and her (and her label's) willingness to push her into a market where she is a refreshingly odd duck, add to her charm in this disparate arena for a lady who otherwise straddles adult-contemporary and rock among Christian and general market audiences. The remixes for "Hang On" make for a worthy addition to her clubby canon.

Jamie Lee Rake