Who invented the remix, really?

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...because I sure as shit know P. Diddy p. didn't* (as alluded to on another thread). This is basically a request for information on what memorable remixes came from the '80s (and maybe early '90s). There's Coldcut's "Paid in Full", natch, but I'm wondering what else there is, since remixes are so pervasive nowadays that it'd be interesting to go back and hear what they sounded like in their infancy.

― Nate Patrin, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

*though I guess he did popularize it in part, maybe. Yeah.

Also: Some of Neu!'s stuff is proto-remixical, right? Like "Super 78"...

― Nate Patrin, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

jamacian reggae producers

― chaki, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Dickie Goodman.

― J Blount, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

King Tubby and Walter Gibbons are currently filing suit against D. Piddy. (Nevermind that KT is dead....)

― M Matos, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I can only assume Arthur Baker isn't especially happy, either.

― Nate Patrin, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually, never mind. Baker started way after Tubby and Gibbons. My bad.

― Nate Patrin, Sunday, 23 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm not 100% sure about this but I think that in hip hop at the moment the remix is actually where a song is redone with several guest rappers (usually big names) over the same beat.

A good remix from the early 90s = Derrick Mays remix of Sueno Latino.

― ed, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Jamaica, no doubt, but in "dance" music, disco producer Tom Moulton started doing them as early as '74, as outlined here. (Moulton also "invented" the 12" singles format.)

― s woods, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

a good interview with Tom Moulton about all this

― michael, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Puff Diddy invented the mashup bootleg.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 24 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I guess we aren't counting hundreds (thousands) of years of say, folk music, or "traditionals," or whatever ya wanna call 'em, where a different musician played a different version of a recognized tune? How many versions of Stackolee can you name in ten seconds?

― masteroftheobvious, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

they'd count as cover versions, arrangements etc - 'remix' specifically refers to a studio alteration of a particular track

― michael, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Phil Spector? Remixed (some would say killed) the original mix of Let It Be. (Though was there much there to begin with, I ask?)

― s woods, Wednesday, 26 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

two years pass...

on what grounds could p. d*ddy *claim* he/they invented the remix?
this isn't a joke i honestly don't know what he could be referring to.

― piscesboy, Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:41 (twenty-one years ago)

There is an album by 9 D1DDY called "We Invented The Remix".

Actually didn't Pete Waterman claim that HE invented the remix at some point?

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 10:57 (twenty-one years ago)

no no, i know the name of the album but i mean what is he referring to? why did he invent it? when? with which tune?

whats he fckng on about?

― piscesboy, Tuesday, 3 August 2004 11:51 (twenty-one years ago)

p diddy doesn't write post-facto justifications on p0xy talkboards, he writes cheques.

― ENRQ (Enrique), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 11:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah, I see. Have a look at Ed's answer up thread

I'm not 100% sure about this but I think that in hip hop at the moment the remix is actually where a song is redone with several guest rappers (usually big names) over the same beat.

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:12 (twenty-one years ago)

p diddy invented the internet and wheel too

― karl, Tuesday, 3 August 2004 19:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Pierre Henry's Psyche Rock and Terry Riley's You're No Good

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 19:42 (twenty-one years ago)

As mentioned upthread, Puff Daddy and Bad Boy invented and poularised the kind of remix where the hottest rappers at the moment rapped new verses over the same beat (usually a really popular beat) ie. Craig Mack "Flava In Ya Ear" -> Craig Mack f. Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J, Biggie Smalls, Rampage "Flava In Ya Ear (remix)". I think "Walk This Way" can be considered the first of this kind of remix though??

― scg, Tuesday, 3 August 2004 19:51 (twenty-one years ago)

what about Treacherous 3 Feel the Heartbeat or any number of variations of the Good Times/Another One Bites the Dust/Bounce, skate, rock, roll basslines. That's as old as hip-hop.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 20:11 (twenty-one years ago)

actually, it's as old as reggae.

― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 21:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Miles Davis' In a Silent Way was compiled from a load of disparate studio tapes and hacked into whole bits of music in a remix sort of way. Maybe the old classical variations in the manner of Saties Trois Gymnopedies function as the same thing.

― matthew james (matthew james), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 22:01 (twenty-one years ago)

In mid 60s Jamaica Sir Coxsone and Duke Reid started cutting their own records. These were "dub plates," usually ten-inch acetates that served as one-off party records not originally intended for public consumption. Dub plates introduced the idea of an unfinished record.
JA sound system engineers took songs and pared them to a basic rhtyhm piece, drums n bass w/vocals mostly removed. Songs could then be refit with different singers or lyrics and preexisting rhythms fit w/ different songs. Thus one song could be slightly reshuffled and rerecorded in 50 different versions for 50 different sound systems. (The Real Rock Rhythm, basis of "Armagiddeon Time," supposedly generated around 800 versions in the late 70s.)
Around 67-68, instrumental "dub" versions started getting released as B sides on commercial singles. And the rest, as they say, is history.
IMO this process is more radical than disco remixing (usually stretching out sections/emphasizing elements of songs). So the answer to the original question is Tom Moulton.

― mc aka lbs, Wednesday, 4 August 2004 10:09 (twenty-one years ago)

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