Stardust Remaster "Music Sounds Better With You" for 20th Anniversary Release

The track will soon come to streaming services for the first time

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished Jun 14, 2018

Released in 1998, Stardust's "Music Sounds Better With You" remains an undeniable French house hit featuring a sneaky Chaka Khan sample flip. Now, the trio of Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter, producer Alan Braxe and vocalist Benjamin Diamond have remastered the track to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

In an interview with Billboard, Braxe and Diamond revealed the trio had got back together in studio last month to remaster the song ahead of a digital release marking the milestone anniversary. Though there is no set release date, the track's re-release will mark the first time it has appeared on streaming services.

"You don't know how it's going to go," Diamond told the site about getting back together with his old groupmates. "It's a special work to do so I was a bit anxious."

Braxe added, "I was a bit anxious too, but a month ago I had a listen to the song and I felt like, 'Wow, it sounds a bit old now.' It sounds good, but compared to today it sounds a bit old, and I thought it's a good thing to try and update it."

Braxe said the remastered track won't sound drastically different from the original. "We did some very subtle compression," he explained. "It sounds a bit like on the original 12-inch."

"Music Sounds Better With You" was the only song the trio ever released as Stardust, though Braxe revealed to Billboard that they had "about five or six demo tracks ready" for a full-length album. Ultimately, they decided not to proceed.

"Don't forget we did this song and released it on Roulé, it was an underground label, the kind of label where you release a single and another single," says Braxe. "By luck, the song became a hit, but that doesn't mean there must be an album."

He added that the demo tracks "might be in the archives somewhere," but that it would be a reach to expect a full-blown group reunion.

"It was something totally unexpected when the magic happened," Braxe said. "It happened once, and we thought, 'Let's keep it like that.'"

Read Diamond and Braxe's conversation with Billboard here, and watch the video for "Music Sounds Better With You" in the player below.

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