Shep Pettibone was on fire in late 1989/early 1990. Between this record and the Madonna and Janet Jackson singles he worked on, he was at the absolute top of his game as a remixer. He was one of a handful of East Coast DJ/producers in that time who could totally transform a song and make it really work in a club and on the weekend dance mix shows on the radio, yet in a way that kept the essence of the song intact. Keep in mind this was an era where in the U.S., freestyle and Hi-NRG were increasingly competing against house in the clubs, but house was still mainly "black" club music, unheard-of on the radio, despite its mainstream popularity overseas. Pettibone and his contemporaries were determined to change that, though. They embraced house and increasingly incorporated it into the remixes they were commissioned to do for major pop labels.There was a problem, though: the monotonous, plodding, bass- and hi-hat-heavy sound of house stood in stark contrast to the mainstream's darling—the midrange-heavy, chopped-up stabs and syncopated electro beats of freestyle, or the fast, glossy, over-the-top production values of Stock-Aitken-Waterman-era Hi-NRG. Many dancers and listeners just weren't quite ready for the hypnotic vibe of house, so in 1989 it was common for producers to try to blend styles together, or have a dance record with a house side and a Latin side.On this release, Pettibone (with help from Steve Peck and Tony Shimkin) did both: side A features a house mix and accompanying instrumental, while side B features two freestyle mixes that keep trying to turn into house. The Electro Dub Gone Haywire Mix actually does transform into a house mix near the end, in a way that's really cool, unlike anything I've heard. All the other remixers in this era, if they tried to combine house and freestyle, just dropped electro breaks onto their house mixes and called it a day. But this remix had a lot of thought put into it, with a clever key change during a break, and then dropping in the house elements one at a time. The only downside is that it's all going on at the same time as a lead melody is played using a Debbie Gibson vocal sample all up and down the keyboard. Even if you're a fan, it really pushes the boundaries of how much you can take. I can't imagine it going over that well in a club, and it really sounds dated now.So in the end, this record is really all about the Deep House Mix and Shep's House Dub on side A. The use of the Armando and Ralphi Rosario acid samples really gives these mixes an edge that's unusual for both Pettibone and Gibson, but I wouldn't really call them "deep house," per se; they're just house mixes. Some days I like one better, and other days I prefer the other. Sure, they're outdated because of all the orchestral stabs and dropped-in samples, and of course the vocals and thematic content of the song just are not compatible with modern pop music anymore ... but I was just playing the vocal mix for someone today and they were incredulous: "man, this is a really good remix! It's just so well done."