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In another of those coincidences that couldn't have been planned at the time, both this and the Josh Wink track were subsequently bigger hits in remixed versions; in fact this is already on its second release here, but as far as I can tell the radio versions are identical, it's just that they replaced the original title 'Legends Of The Dark Black part 2' with a more obvious reference to the lyric.
Unlike 'Higher State Of Consciousness', 'Renegade Master' was a track I was enticed by the possibility of getting my hands on when I encountered this disc. I can't really remember whether I liked it in 1995 (I suspect I didn't) but I do remember my a bit of a running gag in our house as to what the "ill behaviour" was: coughing and pretending to blow your nose, I think we concluded. Anyway, in the subsequent years I'd acquired rather fond memories of the track and was looking forward to re-acqauinting myself with it. And then when I got this home I was mildly disappointed: even though I knew this wasn't the same as the 1998 Fatboy Slim remix, that somehow seemed to have overlapped with my memories of this version and I must have been expecting something with the same sort of immediate punch and force. Instead I got this mellower version that seemed to wrongfoot me and - ironically - sounded like a remix of itself.
A few more listens, though, and I started to warm to this version with its more interesting mood, warm bass and slightly jazzy feel. It seems like a good one for headphones actually. I can still understand why the 1998 version was the bigger hit, but I don't know whether I could say which one I actually preferred now. Unfortunately, and I think uniquely, Roger McKenzie died suddenly while Now 32 was still at the top of the charts, making his other appearances in the series posthumous ones. This Top Of The Pops performance is presumably one of the last pieces of footage of him: he's the one pretending to sing, although the small print in the booklet reveals that it was in fact Diane Charlemagne.
Also appearing on: Now 35, 39 [with a remix of this track]
Available on: It's Like That! [Explicit]
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