"How can you remix rock?"

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So I'm talking to Emma's 17-year-old hiphop-head brother on AIM and getting him to download the Codename: Dustsucker tracks that are up on SLSK (he's good at that), and he's going through all the other available tracks asking me if I've got them all (I have) when he comes across "Big Shot (Alice's Cheshire Cat Mix)" and says "how can you remix rock?"

Which stumped me.

Not because you can't, but because he assumed you couldn't.

So I told him that "Big Shot" was more "ambient guitar+electronic post-rock" than 'rock' (which I guess is picking hairs, but there you go).

Now Pete's a good guy, but he's so totally into his hiphop that he doesn't listen to anything else. He occasionally tells me he's quite interested in jazz and reggae and might check them out at some point; I might make him and MD compilation of some stuff.

But how/why would you think that something couldn't be remixed? Or would/does you/anybody assume that people can only be into one kind of music (hence Pete thinking of me as being "into rock" I guess)?

Comments & thoughts, please.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 07:30 (twenty-two years ago)

remixes have never been integral to the idea of "rock", which has almost always privileged the idea of the authoritative version (can calling their remix album “sacrilege”; the beatles making their back catalog unavailable for sampling, etc.) and then the “cover version” ranging from “respectful” to “desecration”. (the language involved really sez it all doesn’t it?) whereas house/hip-hop/post-rave club music have all (coming out of dub and disco and electro) been music which a. revels in its own plastique fanstastique disposability/materiality (no one “wrote” these tracks made of samples, etc etc ad infinitum) and/or b. always had a healthy history of “versioning” rather than covers.

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 07:38 (twenty-two years ago)

hardly anyone really "covers" hip-hop songs or dance trax, it's just all intertextual references and ting, etc

― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 07:41 (twenty-two years ago)

remix rock = add more reverb and extra guitars

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 07:50 (twenty-two years ago)

"Strongo", although clearly tied to the authority that only 'presence' can provide, how do the live performance and then live recording fit into your scheme (which I agree wit BTW).

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 07:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Aye, Strongo's got a point. I guess I don't really listen to 'rock' as Pete meant it, hence Bark Psychosis, The Stone Roses, Super Furry Animals, The Verve, Spiritualized etcetera I could all see being (or have been) comfortably remixed. Stereophonics or Semisonic would dissolve if you tried to remix them.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 07:56 (twenty-two years ago)

If the awesome remix of Seven Nation Army I heard on Saturday is anything to go by, you can remix rock very well indeed.

I remember the idea of the 'indie remix' in the early 90s being awful - vocals whacked lazily over a completely different half-arsed house tune with zero relationship to the original. Tracks like the White Stripes mix, or Archigram's Doggystyle for that matter, succeed because they bring out the similarities between rock and house - the pounding backbeat, the reliance on riffs and loops and repetition, the sense of waiting for the REALLY good bit to kick in any minute now and going mental when it does.

The difference, however, is in stucture. Obviously rock is more often than not about verse-chorus-verse, and usually quiet-bit-loud-bit, whereas house is about slow buildups. The White Stipes/Touched By The Hand of Z mix works because it keeps the most important bits of the original, the bassline, the vocals, the thumping bass drum, and reconstructs them into a slow-build house tune. So it's sped up a bit, the drums are beephed up into something resembling a proper 4/4 beat and the bassline is looped and fucked about with, and it slowly builds up until the guitars are fully unleased towards the end and it goes all electro and messy. And it sounded fucking wonderful, and as euphoric as anything else I heard that night.

So yeah, THAT's how you remix rock.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 07:58 (twenty-two years ago)

That sounds like a White Stripes tune I could actually enjoy.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 08:05 (twenty-two years ago)

The White Stipes/Touched By The Hand of Z mix

Where do I find this? It wasnt offocially released was it? As Nick sez, it sounds fab...

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 08:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Someone really ought to fuck-up some Hendrix with some breaks and layers.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 08:15 (twenty-two years ago)

The KLF did that with Hendrix ages ago on any number of remixes, for example the What Time Is Love? remix with substantial amounts of Voodo Chile on it. Can't remember the name offhand, but it was great!

― M Carty (mj_c), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 09:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Spencer the live thing is rock's equiv sure - it's a way of admitting the malleability of the song while keeping control of that malleability in the hands of the artist - the whole point of remixes is that you're surrendering your work to somebody else to reshape, which is alien to rock. (Cover versions notwithstanding - they come out on other records under other names.)

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 09:35 (twenty-two years ago)

he process of playing 'rock' is all about that 'narcissism of small differences' though, ie one chord is much like another unless you dissect it really intensely, once you start applying big changes it sticks a rather large stake through the whole operation

― dave q, Tuesday, 22 July 2003 10:16 (twenty-two years ago)

(personal pref., looped drums are, have always been, and always will be complete shit. Programmed drums are fine)

― dave q, Tuesday, 22 July 2003 10:17 (twenty-two years ago)

(reason being if the drummer is playing the exact same thing with the same inflections at the end of the track as beginning then it either means a) they're too stupid to explore the dynamics possible in a linear structure b) they're English/communist/etc and believe that imposing a linear structure on the listener is oppressive and would rather create an 'ambience' and thus be a public service to whoever wants to make it the soundtrack of their life)

― dave q, Tuesday, 22 July 2003 10:19 (twenty-two years ago)

looped drums are, have always been, and always will be complete shit

Er, "When The Levee Breaks" and/or every hip-hop track ever to thread!

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 10:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Aphex Twin remixed "Devil's Haircut". And I own a 12" of the "re-mixed" version of the Stones' "Miss You". I suppose most of those side 5-6 tracks on Sandinista could technically be remixes, too, though in all these cases the definition of "rock" as regards traditional "Chuck Berry, maaaaan" mechanics has been pretty stretched.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 10:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Calla - Custom contains some veryvery beautiful remixes of some of their (already great) (rock)songs.

― willem (willem), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 11:03 (twenty-two years ago)

See also the Erase Errata remix EP tingum and, err, lots of others I'm sure. The question should perhaps more pertinently be, "How can you remix rock and not have it sound like a half-baked space filler?" Otherwise, Junkie XL to thread :(

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 12:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Cornelius's remix of Blur's "Tender" ownz. < /thread>

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 13:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Jess, agreed in principle, but it wasn't always that way. Just today my housemate threw on a version of U2's "New Years Day" remixed by Francois Kevorkian, back in 1983. It's as rock a tune as you could hope for, but it seems that in the early 80s -- maybe as a survival tactic, seeing the success of new wave -- rock was more open to versioning.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 13:20 (twenty-two years ago)

The Cure released a remix album, Mixed Up.

But in general, remixing has been a foreign concept to rock. I think mainly because rock is supposed to be created by a bunch of guys playing music together. Even though the actual recording that's released may be as much a studio confection as any house or dub record, there's always the pretense that it's just a bunch of guys jamming. Making a remix kind of upsets that view of things.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 13:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Charlie is OTM, though I thought the Buffalo Daughter remix was a better candidate, even if the original is more like a Beastie instrumental. Cornelius is a good example for sure but his Moby remix ('We Are All Made Of Stars') is shit, as is Moby for the most part.

― Barima (Barima), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 13:41 (twenty-two years ago)

"in the early 80s -- maybe as a survival tactic, seeing the success of new wave -- rock was more open to versioning."

Either that, or record companies bolted on tons of '12" extended versions' and the like over multiple formats to fleece sheeplike fans out of their hard-earned, before some legislator stepped in and curbed their excesses.

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 15:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Almost interestingly, I've just finished listening to an album by sub-L7 types Broadzilla, which has a Sean Deason remix of a track HILARIOUSLY titled 'Liquor Snatch' at the end. It's quite cool and minimalist and electrofunk, and sounds like it uses about as much of the original as Aphex's Lemonheads mix... which is probably the best tactic for remixing rock to be honest.

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 15:32 (twenty-two years ago)

ask P. Diddy he claims to have invented the remix.

― Chris V. (Chris V), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 15:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Daveq, for the most part i'd agree, but i really love the combination of the two. i like it best when artists program beats using chopped up pieces of loops rather than just drum sounds. loops have better flow and usually sound better, at least to me. i.e. amon tobin vs. newer squarepusher.

― Felcher (Felcher), Tuesday, 22 July 2003 16:06 (twenty-two years ago)

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