Paul Oakenfold with special guest Liquid Todd at The Vogue in Indianapolis

“Pete Tong said it perfectly: getting a release on Perfecto is like a badge of honor,” Paul Oakenfold recalls. “A dance music badge of honor! Those words really meant a lot to me as we began to consider how to properly pay tribute to Perfecto’s first three decades as a record label.”

Pete Tong, of course, is dance music’s longtime tastemaker supreme – but don’t just take Tongy’s word for it: in 2003, none other than the late Queen Elizabeth bestowed an award on Oakenfold on behalf of the British Empire as a “Pioneer of the Nation” for his contributions to dance music. All aspects of that legacy are coming together with “Perfecto 30”: an expansive series debuting in 2023-2024 spanning unique global events, musical releases, and exclusive artist/DJ performances that reflect not just 30-plus years of the Perfecto imprint’s success, but the goalpost-moving achievements of Oakenfold, Perfecto’s co-founder and figurehead, as well. Indeed, it’s hard to separate Perfecto’s landmarks from Oakenfold’s storied history as arguably the first global superstar DJ, paving the way from Ibiza and the Glastonbury main stage to smash Las Vegas residencies; as a hitmaking producer for everyone from Happy Mondays to Madonna and U2; a pioneer of contemporary electronic music soundtracks for games and hit Hollywood movies like Swordfish and Bourne Identity; and an innovator of DJ culture across genres, crucial in bringing underground club sounds from trance to EDM to a worldwide mainstream audience (and that’s just a partial list). “Paul’s attitude in starting Perfecto was quite visionary, quite refreshing – I think he started a brand, really, that also happened to be a label,” Tong notes in the upcoming documentary Welcome to Perfecto.