Brennan Heart & Jonathan Mendelsohn

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Brennan Heart & Jonathan Mendelsohn · Brennan Heart is a hardstyle producer. Jonathan Mendelsohn is an American singer and songwriter, born in 1980 in Brooklyn and raised in upstate New York. He began writing songs at the age of ten, after his mother, a teacher and pianist, had taught him chord changes. He cites Top 40 radio and singers such as Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and George Michael as influences, and came to know electronic music in the New York rave scene of the late 1990s. In 2002 he won a talent contest at the Apollo Theater.

Music and breakthrough

In dance music he worked with DJs such as Hardwell, Blasterjaxx and Laidback Luke. In 2013 he sang Imaginary for Brennan Heart. The track was part of the closing show of Defqon.1 and appeared on Brennan's album Evolution of Style. It topped Beatport's Hard Dance chart and stayed in the top hundred for 777 days. Q-dance chose it as the best hardstyle track of the year. In the Netherlands Imaginary went gold in 2019 and platinum in 2022.

Influence

Hardstyle is hard dance music with a heavy, distorted kick drum and a rhythm that keeps the dance floor moving. Imaginary shows how the style reached a large audience with a real singer and a melodic chorus. For Mendelsohn it was one of the collaborations that made his name known in dance.

Listening

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  Imaginary · Brennan Heart & Jonathan Mendelsohn, 2013
  Apple Music ↗