While you’re busy setting your DVR for the new season of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE (which begins tonight on Fox), you could do worse for background music than BALLROOM REMIXED, a new album of rumbas and sambas and such that’s just been released by sometime SYTYCD choreographer Melanie LaPatin.
“We’re always using pop songs on the show — you know, hits,” says the hoofer, who won more than 100 championship titles during her career in competition. “So it gave me an idea. I always need new music, for productions and whatever, so I thought, ‘Hey, why not get some of my musical friends to create some original songs for me?’ And they came through like gangbusters!”
The result is anything but “strictly ballroom.” But — as performed by singers from around the world (Lee Latchford Evans, late of the crazy-successful English quintet Steps; “German Idol” alum Linda Teodosiu; American teen queen Kaya) — it IS a lotta fun.
“That’s really the point,” says LaPatin, newly christened “Lady Cha-Cha” by her cohorts. “Let’s get people having a good time and moving, and thinking about ballroom dance. None of these songs may be traditional tangos or whatever, but I’d be willing to bet you’ll for sure remember them!” 