Sébastien Léger - Jaguar

Due to compulsory licensing laws, you are not actually required by law to gain permission to do a cover version, as long as you inform the copywrite owners before it's distributed. So it's entirely possible that the people responsible for this release didn't ask permission from UR to do it, and I'd even say it's highly probably. There have been numerous cover versions of this track, including a pretty awful trance version that came about when UR declined to license the track. So don't jump to conclusions about UR's integrity...

As for this version track itself, it's decent enough as a slightly more dance-floor friendly twist on the original, with the added benefit of sounding quite a bit better as well. Definitely not essential though.

Wow, just saw these reviews above... I've not heard this version and can only comment on the fact that the original and the slew of UR remixes by the likes of Jeff Mills and Derrick May etc are a piece of electronic history and from the fact that I've not heard any good music from monsieur Leger, so to me it does sound like a pig's ear of a re-hash of a classic.

That said, the whole purpose of cover versions (when legitimate) is to take a song or piece of music to another audience, now, we're still talking about different styles of electronic or dance music so it's not as if someone has done a death metal version of Jaguar, so it's still fairly niche.

At least the artist or commissioning label has gone thru the proper channels in approaching Mad Mike for the rights to cover the music that his company holds the publishing rights for, so even if you hate this version (and on paper it does sound awful) you can rest in the happy thoughts that this version is (hopefully) putting money back into the rightful hands of the people who wrote and created one of the most hypnotic melodies of the 20th century (well if you like techno and electronic stuff anyhow)!

All record company or label owners know that it is their catalogue of material that is the legacy to the label to survive and in these times when music means nothing to the yout' of today you have to move accordingly. All Mad Mike has done here is use one of his sub atomic stealth battle weapons or some such to slowly burrow into the minds of Europe's dancing crowds and hit them from the inside while protecting his and his artists integrity, I say good on you Mike... now who's going to cover 'Beau Mot Plage'?!

With Detroit being in an economic depression it's understandable for UR and Submerge to allow their most successful offering, Knights of the Jaguar, to be remade on a different label.

But this is about the most distasteful remake possibly. The entire track has been stripped of its individuality, essence, and soul, and remade with a bare minimum of class and style. The production is low-level, and the arrangement just falls flat.

Personally I would have rather seen another Knight of the Jaguar Remix package on UR or Submerge. The way this is released, as Leger - Jaguar. It's as if he's taking credit for writing and producing the original track, the melodies, harmonies, when it fact this is nothing more than a cover, a terrible one at that. People new to the scene, and unfamiliar with the original UR Jaguar will probably think Sebastian Leger is a musical genius because of this song, when in actually he had almost zero musical input into this track.

It's hard to criticize UR because they are so consistently good, are usually set the bar for electronic music, but this business tactic of selling out one of their strongest and greatest tracks hopefully will be avoided in the future.

Another mistake from the mistakes. The only difference between this ugly cover of the Knights of the Jaguar and Cor Fijneman's is that Léger payed the copyrights. The only insteresting thing about this record is that it proves that someone without the slightest bit of musical taste can actually make beauty disappear.
If Mad Mike has accepted the deal, then unfortunately it's obvious that Underground Resistance needs money. So buy UR records, the music is good and it will prevent such records from being released.