Madonna and Me: Melt Down Mix Volume 2 | A Personal Journey Through Music and Identity

The Second Half of My First Madonna Mix

When I originally created Melt Down Mix in 2008, restraint clearly wasn’t part of the equation. The mix clocked in at more than four hours. This may have seemed perfectly reasonable to me at the time. However, it was always much too long for a single set.

Years later, I finally did what I’d been meaning to do and split the original into two proper volumes.

If you haven’t already, start with Madonna and Me: A Personal Journey Through Music and Identity — Volume 1. That post tells the story of how Madonna entered my life in the early 80s and seeing her Virgin Tour. Eventually, I found my place in the gay community while her music provided much of the soundtrack.

Melt Down Mix Volume 2 picks up where that set leaves off. It completes what was actually my very first Madonna mix for Party Favorz.

Where the Diva Series Really Began

At the time, there was no grand plan for what would eventually become the Diva Series and later the Diva Hall of Fame. I was simply putting together a massive collection of Madonna remixes because I loved the music. Also, I wanted to create something worthy of an artist whose career had been intertwined with so much of my own life.

Looking back, this mix was essentially the starting point.

Madonna would eventually become the reigning queen of the Diva Hall of Fame. Furthermore, Party Favorz produced countless birthday celebrations, official remix collections, bootleg compilations, circuit sets, and career-spanning retrospectives in the years that followed.

None of that was on my radar in 2008.

I was just having a damn good time mixing Madonna.

Melt Down Mix Volume 2

Splitting the original set gave me the opportunity to make the entire experience easier to enjoy without changing what made it special in the first place. This isn’t a newly conceived Madonna collection or an attempt to rewrite history. Melt Down Mix Volume 2 is the second half of that original four-plus-hour marathon. It is preserved as it was intended but presented in a much more manageable format.

Together, Volumes 1 and 2 represent a snapshot of Party Favorz at a very different point in its history. They also capture Madonna at a particular moment in hers.

That’s part of what makes revisiting these older mixes so much fun. They’re not simply collections of songs. Instead, they document where dance music was at the time, which remixes were circulating, what I was listening to, and how I approached putting a continuous set together more than fifteen years ago.

Madonna, Party Favorz and a Beginning I Didn’t Recognize

It’s strange looking back and realizing how much grew out of this one ridiculously long mix.

Madonna had already been part of my life for decades by then. However, Melt Down Mix marked the beginning of something different. It was the point where that lifelong connection became part of Party Favorz itself.

What began here eventually expanded into one of the largest artist collections on the site. In addition, it helped establish the very idea behind honoring the women whose music dominated our dancefloors and our lives.

So consider Melt Down Mix Volume 2 both the conclusion of the original 2008 mix and another piece of Party Favorz history finally put into its proper place.

Two volumes. One original mix. And the woman who unknowingly helped launch an entire series.

Until the next time…ENJOY!

Album : Madonna Melt Down Mix Volume 2
Genre : Circuit Anthems
Year : 2008
Total Time : 2:01:17:00

1. Frozen (Calderone Extended Club Remix)
2. Music (HQ2 Club Mix)
3. Bedtime Stories (Deep Dish Remix)
4. Hung Up (Chus & Ceballos Remix)
5. Sky Fits Heaven (Sasha Remix)
6. Nothing Really Matters (Club 69 Future Mix)
7. Impressive Instant (Peter Rauhofer Universal Club Mix)
8. Jump (OranGeFuZzZ Kangaroo Klub Mix)
9. American Life (Peter Rauhofer’s American Anthem Part 1)
10. Mother & Father (Peter Rauhofer Re-Invention Mix)
11. Forbidden Love (Alexander & Mark VDH Remix)
12. Love Profusion (Ralphi Rosario Extended Big Room Vox)
13. The Beat Goes On (Allan Natal Remix)
14. Beautiful Stranger (Calderone Club Mix)
15. Nothing Fails (Nevins Global Dub)
16. Drowned World/Substitute For Love (BT & Sasha’s Bucklodge Remix)