Propellerheads feat. Miss Shirley Bassey — History Repeating. A collaboration story

In the late 1990s, the Propellerheads duo had everything they could have wished for: their demo EP Dive was warmly received by the audience; their big beat style was at the height of popularity; David Arnold, the composer of the Bond films of the 1990s, offered them a collaboration (a remix of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was created for him); their track Spybreak for a fictional spy film was purchased for the first part of The Matrix, and now a full-length album was in the works. It seemed like it all fell into their lap.

“At that point, we just seemed to have so much confidence—the whole label and everything—it was like, Anything’s possible” Once, they were returning from Australia with Wiseguys and the boss of their label, Wall of Sound. Alex Gifford from Propellerheads, who always had the same Elvis hairstyle and cool sideburns, talked about a new draft where the keyboard intro was just perfect for Shirley Bassey’s song. Sitting behind Alex, the label boss, Mark Jones, uttered the fateful words: “Shall we do it, then? Let’s just call her.